


Dorothea, Duchesses, Dudgeons and Daughters

by constantlearner



Series: Pieces [1]
Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers, Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Genre: F/M, Post-World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 06:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2259933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantlearner/pseuds/constantlearner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This it the first part of a story I originally posted elsewhere as Pieces. That  narrated events in chronological order. I decided to see if the story works better split into three connected sections not with every scene strictly chronological. If any reader has had the patience read the both versions, I would love to know which structure you prefer.<br/>In 1945, Dorothea's work at Bletchley Park has finished. She is wondering what happens next, but she isn't the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: I had written the whole of “Gerry Wimsey falls in love” before remembering that Dorothy L. Sayers writes his name as “Jerry”. My only excuse is that, when he introduced himself to Dorothea, she was picturing the name as “Gerry” and by the time she realised that his family spelt it differently it was firmly in her head (and mine) as Gerry.

 

** List of some Ransome and Sayers characters for the convenience those who less familiar with the “other” fandom  **

**Gerry (or Jerry) Wimsey** – The Viscount St. George. Son of Gerald, Duke of Denver and his wife, Helen. Graduate of Oxford University. (Christ Church) Spitfire pilot. A _childless_ dead hero.

 **Dorothea Wimsey, nee Callum**. Also a graduate of Oxford University (Shrewsbury College). Has been working at Bletchley Park. Gerry’s wife for a month. His widow for five years.  Not, alas, the mother of his child. A fact for which she will never be forgiven by:

 **Helen Wimsey** , the Duchess of Denver. Gerry’s mother and wife of:

 **Gerald Wimsey** , Gerry’s father, Duke of Denver and brother of:

 **Lord Peter Wimsey** , Oxford graduate (Balliol), man-about-town, noted book collector and amateur sleuth. Presumably not a hero to **Bunter,** his valet, although anyone looking through Bunter’s private mementoes might be excused for thinking he was.  **Lord Peter** is married to:

 **Lady Peter Wimsey,** better known as **Harriet Vane,** best-selling detective novelist and also a graduate of Oxford University. (Shrewsbury College). Gets on well with her mother-in-law:

 **Honoria** , **Dowager Duchess of Denver,** sister to **Paul Delgardie** , (aged and wealthy connoisseur of women and wine,) and mother of **Gerald, Peter** and:

 **Lady Mary,** wife to Charles Parker, mother of **Charlie** (Charles Peter), **Polly** and **Harriet Parker** , an ex-communist, and in her youth much admired by:

 **James Turner** , alias **Captain Flint** , alias **Uncle Jim,** alias **the house-boat man** expelled from Oxford Univeristy,  “always off somewhere aboard, just when he would be really useful”. Brother of:

 **Molly Blackett,** wholives at Beckfoot, widow of Bob Blackett and mother of:

 **Peggy Brading,** nee Peggy Blackett,  until recently a WRNS officer. Wife to Jim Brading, mother to Susie Brading, Amazon pirate, first mate and part owner of _Amazon_ (a sailing dinghy) and sister of:

 **Nancy Walker** , nee Nancy (Ruth really, but pirates are meant to be Ruthless) Blackett, also a WRNS officer until a year ago. Mother of **Jane Walker** and Captain and part owner of _Amazon._ Amazon pirate and Terror of the Seas (well, the Lake anyway). Wife of:

  **Commander John Walker,** owner and Captain of _Swallow_ , a sailing dinghy (also commands a Royal Naval vessel which does not appear in this story.) Older brother of:

 **Susan Walker,** First Mate of _Swallow._ Susan also does not appear in this story. Eldest sister of:

 **Bridget Walker,** living at Beckfoot and younger sister of:

 **Roger Walker,** RAF pilot, able seaman of _Swallow_ and younger brother of:

 **Titty Callum** , nee Titty Walker, able seaman of _Swallow,_ wife of:

  **Dick Callum,** Cambridge graduate, brother of Dorothea, Captain of _Scarab_ (a sailing dinghy) enthusiastic bird-watcher andamateur geologist and friend of:

 **Tom Dudgeon** , also a keen bird –watcher. His mother, Ella Dudgeon is a friend of:

  **Mrs Barrable,** also a resident of Horning and former governess to **Mrs Callum** , mother of Dorothea.

 

* * *

****

** Prologue: **

The Viscountess St. George was homeless, unemployed and widowed.  She had been a widow for five years, after being a wife for less than 2 months. She had been unemployed for two days. She could not have said how long she had been homeless.

Perhaps she was not yet homeless. She had a bed to sleep in tonight, at any rate. She had handed in her fortnight’s notice to her landlady, who would happily have continued to have a real live Viscountess as a permanent feature of her doily-filled parlour without attempting to raise the rent. Perhaps Dorothea had been homeless since the Blitz. The bomb that had killed the neighbours had destroyed the brick-built house in London, the only home she could remember, completely. Perhaps that house had ceased being her home the morning she had left it in her best white afternoon frock and her mother’s veil.

 Gerry had been late. She had only had to wait for ten minutes with her mother and Titty in the Victorian parish church, but that had been long enough for Dorothea to begin to worry. Gerry had breezed in, charming even in apology. Fifteen minutes later she was married to a Duke’s son with slight traces of grease under his fingernails from mending the chain on his motorcycle. Fifteen minutes after that the five of them (Gerry with clean fingernails, now.) were sitting down to a cold lunch. It had been the last time she had eaten in that dining room, Dorothea realised. By half past two her new husband had borrowed ten bob from Ronald Ashwell for petrol and Ronald had borrowed five bob from Titty to be sure of having his train fare back to the base. Half an hour later, Gerry and Dorothea were well on their way to a comfortable country inn not too far from the airfield. Next morning Gerry was in the air and Dorothea was on her way back to Bletchley Park. A month later, she had sat in this fussy parlour, while Harriet Wimsey had told her the news that turned the dreamlike, whirlwind romance into a nightmare.

Nightmare and dream alike seemed unreal now. The occasional reminders of what-might-have-been were as unreal as the signals from Mars had seemed, that first snowy winter at Dixon’s farm. Dorothea’s world seemed to have shrunk to a few rooms (huts really) and an endless stream of information to be filed, checked, cross-referenced, indexed and correlated. Signals still arrived from the Martians, almost as regularly as letters from her mother. Those seemed real. The rarer letters from her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law did not. The slightly more frequent ones from Harriet occupied some sort of intermediate level of reality.

 

And now, suddenly, she had come to an abrupt stop. The interminable procession of days (and nights) where her duty was plain and her next actions were inevitable had ended. She had to decide what to do with the rest of her life. She had a choice. The last time she had made a big decision, she had agreed to marry Gerry. She had loved him. She hoped she had made him happy. She would have stuck by him whatever happened. She had mourned him sincerely and thought of him daily. If, somewhere in the back of her mind, Dorothea Callum, Oxford graduate and generally credited with having “a good head on her shoulders” had realised that her life with Gerry Wimsey might have had more thorns than roses, and that the future Duke of Denver was unlikely to have remained a faithful husband, Dorothea Wimsey was too loyal to ever mention this realisation to another soul.


	2. Chapter 2

**Very late August, 1945**

Her parents were living in rooms in Medmenham. Dorothea didn’t know how long they would be there. Her brother and sister-in-law, too, might find their war-work abruptly terminated any day now, just has hers had been. They would welcome her with open arms, and she could share the little attic room of the cottage they lived in with the house martins. Dorothea smiled wryly. She had once thought that she would be the one to be looking after Dick and seeing that he remembered to eat and so-on. The other girls had been rather shocked that her ambitions had stretched no further when the topic was raised as they dried themselves after bathing, one hot afternoon on Wild Cat Island. Only Susan had been prepared to admit that there might be a certain interest in running a house, and even she had been unable to hide the fact that she thought a household with only one person might be a rather small challenge. Titty and Peggy had looked frankly horrified. Nancy had cheerful said “Oh, you’ll win prizes and so forth, for writing, and we’ll come and cheer you – if we’re in England at the time of course.”

Anyway, when she really thought about it, there was only one place she wanted to go. Surely she had earned herself a little holiday? A little time to think? She had worked so hard and spent so little over the past five years that she could afford to take a week or so before she had to look for work.

There was somewhere else she had to go first, before she could make any decisions.

* * *

 

She arrived at Tallboys in time for lunch. So did the Duchess. Lord Peter’s Uncle Paul was staying with Lord and Lady Peter. He said little during the meal, but his eyes, faded and red rimmed, took in every gesture and nuance. Dorothea thought he was taking a malicious enjoyment in the situation, but could not for the moment work out at whom the malice was directed.

Dorothea knew that Bredon, and perhaps the younger two boys would normally have been present at the lunch table. It was after all a family party. She had heard her mother-in-law on the subject before, and was not surprised that the children were eating with Mrs Trapp in the kitchen today.  Dorothea was determined not to mention the questions she had in front of her mother-in-law. She would bide her time until lunch was over, and then ask to speak to Lord Peter on a matter of business, privately. Her Grace (never was a woman less gracious, Dorothea thought) could hardly barge into her brother-in-law’s private study, unasked.

Her Grace was far too sharp to let that happen.

“I suppose, Dorothea dear, you will find yourself at a bit of a loose end now? Are you going to find yourself some nice little job? I do hope you manage to find something _suitable_.  Tell me, what _would_ you have done – but for the war?”

 _But for the war I would be sailing_ Scarab _up the lake with Gerry just now, it’s just the right wind – we would be living in that little cottage on the Beckfoot side of the lake, and I would be writing stories without cutting them brutally short because of the paper rationing and Gerry…_

_That was the rub wasn’t it? That had always been the weak point in all their “what we’ll do after the war” conversations. Gerry had pointed out that his allowance would enable them to live modestly in a cottage somewhere – the Lake District or the Broads, if Dorothea liked. He didn’t need the excitement of gambling or fast cars while he had her, he’d said. He’d find something to do, some kind of job to keep him from distracting her while she worked. And then he would demonstrate how distracting he would be without the job, and duly (and happily and wonderfully and contently) distracted, Dorothea would again decide that it would be too unkind to point out that most of the excitement in her husband’s life was currently being provided by the Luftwaffe._

“But for the war, Gerry would be here and there would be no need to ask…..” Dorothea began.

“Yes, well, if there had been children, I hope you would have known how much you had to be grateful for and devoted yourself to them properly – as I did to mine.”

The Duchess of Denver darted a malicious glance at her sister-in-law. Harriet’s expression was mild. Dorothea envied her self-control. Dorothea’s own left hand curled into a fist under the cover of the table-cloth.  She remembered Gerry’s voice, trying to sound off-hand, _I rather wish the_ mater _did care about me a little. I mean me, Gerry, not Lord St.George-who’s-got-to-be-there-so-he-can-do-the-right-thing-by-the-estate._   The pain of her own nails digging into her palm helped a little. She said nothing.

“But for the war, I doubt you would have been in a position to meet my son anyway.” The Duchess continued after a pause. “Of course, I realised your financial expectations would have changed after you met him, but you must see that….

“Oh, I think it was rather likely they would have met sometime, dontcherknow.” Peter cut in. _When Uncle Peter starts playing the fatuous silly ass, he’s at his most dangerous, Gerry had told Dorothea once. This was the first time she had heard Lord Peter do it._

Peter ploughed on. There was no telling what explosion would otherwise ensue. Dorothea was a young woman of character. Helen was still stupid enough to mistake good manners for docility.

 _“_ I mean, after all, you knew Dorothea’s mother, didn’t you surely, Helen? She came out a year or two after you, as I recall. And Blackett and his wife put up with me so kindly when I so under the weather towards the end of the last show  – Dorothea’s been friends with Blackett’s daughters since they were all little girls. And of course there’s theArbuthnot connection and the Oxford connection and I’m sure we met at the theatre. The premiere of that second Claude Amery play. It’s really quite amazing Jerry and Dorothea didn’t meet before, what?”

Dorothea would do her best.

“Yes,” she said. “In fact, it was through the resemblance to Peter that I first worked out who Gerry was.”

“Who Jerry was?” The Duchess looked puzzled. Paul Delagardie put down his knife and fork and listened with even greater interest.

“Yes. When I first met him, at a dance, Gerry only told me his first name. Then he took me for lunch in London, but the surname he gave….” Dorothea smiled at Peter. “Well… it was a family name… but it wasn’t Wimsey. Then we spent a day in Cambridge. College architecture has a certain ecclesiastical look, and I’d seen Lord Peter against background of a church less than a year before, at Nancy and John’s wedding so I saw the resemblance – and knew Jerry must be some sort of connection. And then Gerry confessed the next time I saw him.” Dorothea smiled briefly. “I think by that time he knew I’d forgive him! And by that time I cared about him far too much just to say goodbye.”

Paul Delagardie chuckled.

“One in the eye for you, Helen.” he said pleasantly. The Duchess ignored him.

“Yes, well, I suppose you’ve come today hoping that Peter will wrangle an allowance out of Gerald for you. I have to tell you that, with a Labour government and the way things are, you will have to look elsewhere for your financial support.”

“My friend and niece came today because we invited her to what I hoped would be a pleasant family lunch and for the pleasure of her company.” Harriet said. Her rich contralto voice was very quiet and calm. No-one but an idiot would fail to recognise it for the warning shot it was, Dorothea thought.

Paul Delagardie evidently thought his elder niece-in-law _was_ an idiot.

“Invited. You see Helen, invited. Not ringing up first thing this morning and saying _I hope you can give me luncheon_ , as you did.”

Dorothea couldn’t help letting the corner of her mouth twitch, just a little. She hoped the Duchess hadn’t seen it. She had, of course.

“I always expected to earn my own living.” Dorothea said, as mildly as she could.

“Yes, of course. I suppose it’s a matter of upbringing. You’re still under thirty, are you not? Since there _are_ no children, I don’t suppose there would be any objection to you marrying again.”

The words without their context might be innocent. In context, the insinuation was plain enough. Dorothea had had enough. 

“I expected to earn my living with my brain or my hands, standing on my feet or sitting at a desk. I did not, and do not, expect to marry or conduct any aspect of my private life for pecuniary advantage.”

Had anyone dared to drop a pin in that second, it would have been clearly audible.

Lord Peter pushed back his chair.

“And I’m sure the work of both brain and hands would do you great credit. And now, since, travel is so difficult at the moment, Dorothea, might I ask you to just look through some papers in my office, since you are here? You’ll excuse us, I hope, Harriet.”

Harriet bowed her head in dignified assent, and Dorothea had preceded Lord Peter through the door before the shaking in her hands was so much as to be absolutely noticeable.

If there had indeed been a dessert, no-one was foolish enough to notice aloud that it had not been served.

* * *

 

“Might I get anything for Lady St. George, my lord?”

“No…..No thank you.” Dorothea managed to say. Tears of rage were perilously close.

“I think a glass of port might suit the moment admirably.” Lord Peter suggested.

“Might I trouble you to sit down, Dorothea?” Lord Peter said in the pause after the door closed behind Bunter. She stopped pacing about the room and looked at him enquiringly.

“My knee is rather giving me gyp. And I couldn’t bear the silent opprobrium from Bunter if he returned and found me seated in the presence of a standing lady.”

Dorothea gave a short, unwilling laugh and sat in the nearest chair.

“I’m sorry your knee troubles you.” she said, “I hope it isn’t going to be a prolonged problem?”

“Slipped and twisted it playing cricket with the boys – and Polly.”

“Did it lose you many runs?”

“I was bowling. With the vanity of middle age, I was showing them how spin should be put on the ball – only to discover, of course that Polly could do the thing rather better than I could.”

“Gerry always said that you were a batsman.”

Peter found himself unexpectedly touched by the fact that Gerry had mentioned this in the short time he had shared with Dorothea.

“I’m….”

They both began at once.

“No – after you.” they both said.

Bunter came in with two glasses of port. Lord Peter had been right, Dorothea reflected, however strange it seemed. The port was oddly comforting.

“It’s a bit rotten for you… and she is your sister-in-law after all.”

“And you’re my niece-in-law. Gerry did expect us to see that you’d be alright you know. Harriet and myself. He wasn’t quite as careless of his obligations as some people would have you think. Today, Uncle Paul was determined to pour oil on the flames, for some Machiavellian reason of his own. ”

“You’ve been so kind to me, you and Harriet. I hope it hasn’t caused too many problems for you?”

“With Helen? That would be a lost cause. We enjoy your company. Harriet misses Oxford you know.”

Dorothea smiled briefly in understanding.

“And on that point, I really do have something to tell you.” Peter continued. “You know Gerry left everything to you – and left me as his executor. It’s a pretty straightforward will. It had to be, of course.  Gerry had only his allowance from his father to live on, before he joined the RAF. But my great-uncle, my father’s younger brother left small amounts to Gerry and Winifred outright, regardless of the title or anything else. Gerry couldn’t touch it until he was thirty-five. You aren’t that, yet. But I’ve taken advice and there seems to be no reason why you shouldn’t have access to the money now. Executors do have a certain amount of discretion in certain things. It’s not enough to live on. Not even enough to buy you a small flat with things as they are. You’re a good writer and Harriet thinks you would certainly be able to make a go of it, if it weren’t for the paper rationing. You may still be able to make a go of it, and if you have a little behind you to see you over the lean period you’ll doubtless begin with, that increases your chances of having a successful career. Think about it anyway.”

* * *

 

“ _Do_ you think your uncle is becoming senile, Peter?” Harriet asked as he watched her brushing her hair that night. “Helen and he never did see eye to eye of course, but he’s never been this rude to her before.”

“A gentleman is never rude by accident.”

Harriet frowned. “Wilde?” she suggested uncertainly.

“Maybe I am misquoting somewhat.” Peter admitted. “We want Chief-Superintendent Kirk to put us right. I’m not sure I want to admit that we have descended to the depths of quoting Oscar Wilde to each other. Far too low-brow, I fear. Did you have much trouble keeping Helen and Uncle Pandarus from each other’s throats?”

“Uncle Pandarus pleaded age and infirmity and the need to lie down after luncheon, leaving me to listen to Helen. She would go on about Dorothea not being in a position to understand a mother’s feelings, until, I’m ashamed to admit, I pointed out to her that she was not in a position to understand how Dorothea felt about being a widow.  It was rather brutal of me.”

“You felt ashamed. That shows you to be no brute.”

“I do feel sympathy for large, strong men.” said Harriet, putting down her brush and picking up her nail file.

“Why the sudden onset of such particular sympathy?” Peter enquired.

“Dealing with Helen. She _will_ start a battle of words. If I don’t respond it only encourages her to push further, but in a battle of minds…It hardly seems fair.”

“Domina, I do see. In a world with the atom bomb, we still need rifles, you mean.”

“I wouldn’t say the discrepancy is that big.” Harriet replaced the file on her dressing table and climbed into bed next to her husband.

 


	3. Chapter 3

It was still the loveliest place in the world, Dorothea thought as _Amazon_ , with Nancy at the tiller, slide quietly into the Amazon River. It was not so long before sunset, but there was still light enough to see clearly inside the boat house. Dorothea realised, with a guilty start that she hoped was entirely internal, that she had scarcely thought of _Scarab_ for months. _Scarab_ was there, bobbing quietly between _Swallow_ and the Beckfoot rowing boat, and seemed in excellent condition.

Nancy saw where Dorothea was looking.

“She’s been out of the water for most of the time. It’s really Bridget who’s done the lion’s share of keeping an eye on her. We did take you and Dick at your word, and sailed her a few times, this summer. She can still beat _Amazon_ and _Swallow_ in a race.” Nancy grinned. Dorothea had very little doubt who had been sailing _Scarab_ in the race in question. “It was the first time Peggy, had been away from Susie for more than ten minutes since she was born and her mind wasn’t totally on the race, otherwise _Amazon_ might have won.”

Nancy patted _Amazon_ ’s gunwhale in a reassuring manner before leading the way out of the boat house.  “Come and be introduced to my daughter and my niece. My daughter is by far the better behaved of the two. Jane must take after John, luckily for me. Susie, on the other hand is an Amazon pirate through and though.”

* * *

 

Nancy spluttered a mouthful of tea out onto the Beckfoot lawn before the familiar laugh rang out. Jane Walker, sitting up solemnly by herself, considered her mother’s reaction and made a noise that could perhaps be considered a chortle.

“You……said…Oh… Gimminy, Dot, that must have been priceless.”

Peggy looked from her sister to her friend.

“I don’t see quite what…”

“Oh Peggy, you galoot.  Don’t you see that Dot very nearly called the Duchess of Denver a prostitute – _and_ got away with it.”

It was Peggy’s turn to splutter tea.

“Nancy, you can’t say..”

“I say, that isn’t quite…”

“Well, what else could you call it?” Nancy demanded. “The horrible dragon makes that dig about financial expectations and then suggests Dorothea gets married again just to have someone else support her. And all along Dorothea _has_ been working at proper job and her wretched mother-in-law _did_ marry a duke in expectation of becoming a duchess and having….” Nancy waved a careless hand, “oh, a lot of responsibility of course, but really she could do what she likes – and I bet she does. I don’t honestly think she would have married the duke if he’d been – oh, a solicitor, or a naval lieutenant, for example. Come on now – do you? And it’s not as if she has to do her own housekeeping. So tell me how that _isn’t_ money just for …”

“Nancy!” Peggy’s voice had a slight edge to it.

“Shiver my timbers, it isn’t as if the girls are speaking yet – and I’m sure Dot’s heard worse.”

Nevertheless, Dorothea was interested to note, Nancy did not complete her sentence.

“What I said isn’t quite the same as …what Nancy said.” Dorothea continued quietly. “But I suppose she could have taken it that way. If she did, she has to acknowledge that she’s insulted me at least equally though.”

“Some people just can’t _be_ logical. Or they don’t want to be.” Peggy said, turning Susie over on her rug. Dorothea wasn’t quite sure why the baby needed to be turned over like a piece of toast. There would be some good reason. In everything they learned, the Blacketts (and secretly Dorothea still thought of them as that) seemed to achieve effortless mastery in such a short space of time.

 “Good for you anyway. She’s been rotten to you for years with you biting your tongue. I don’t see that it can have made things any worse – standing up to her. Mother still gives in to the Great-aunt just about every time, and it doesn’t seem to make her any better.” Nancy said.

“Speaking of which – that bottle must be cool enough by now. Are you determined to starve my poor little niece?” Peggy asked.

“Yes, she beginning to wobble a bit, but she’s got the hang of this sitting lark pretty well, hasn’t she?” said Nancy, gathering up her daughter.

Jane spluttered out her first mouthful of milk and looked round with great satisfaction.

“At least we’re on the lawn.” Nancy said.  “Practically nothing to clear up, except her frock, and that’s a lost cause any time after lunch.”

“Before, even.” said Peggy.

“What’s Miss Turner got to do with Jane not getting enough to eat?” Dorothea asked.

Peggy laughed at her worried expression.

“Oh, she came to stay a not long before Susie arrived. I suppose she _is_ lonely in Harrogate. Only one servant to boss about and she daren’t do that too much or she’ll be left with no-one. She behaved herself pretty well for the first week – no digs about Father at all and practically none about John or Jim.”

Nancy grinned savagely. “She’s a little bit afraid of what John might say to her if she was too horrid.”

Dorothea felt surprised. Susan could certainly say things to make you feel uncomfortable if she thought you were in the wrong. (And most of the time, Dorothea had realised now, Susan had been justified.) She had always thought John was very patient.

“Peg could excuse herself to go and lie down every time the GA got too much.” Nancy continued.

“And of course Nancy was quite busy with Jane and all the washing and so on. After a day or too, the GA started making little remarks about feeling unwelcome with no-one sitting with her and reading to her all the time.” Peggy said.

“Which she jolly well was. And she can read perfectly well herself.,”

“And then she started to say that surely Nancy could have the good manners to spend more time sitting with her and Mother.”

“So I did. Every time Jane wanted feeding. Which was the only time I had to sit down anyway.”

Dorothea looked puzzled.

“Oh the bottle has only been for the last month or so.” Nancy explained, leaning Jane over her shoulder and rubbing her back.

“The GA tried to remonstrated, and Nancy just did the wide-eyed innocent look and says _but surely you don’t want me to starve her, Aunt Maria.”_

“She cleared off back to Harrogate a few days later.” Nancy said. “Just in time really. Would you like to give Jane the second half of this bottle, Dot?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how.”

“Nothing  to it. She knows what she’s doing alright. Look, you’ve feed lambs, that Easter you stayed with the Dixons. It’s pretty much the same, except lambs don’t need burping, and she’s done that.”

Dorothea thought Jane would cry, but she didn’t and settled down quickly to consume the other half of the bottle.  Jane’s hair stuck up at the back. Dorothea tried to smooth the thin, fine hair gently. 

“It never does lie flat at the back.” Nancy said softly, smiling.  “Neither does John’s.”

And Nancy resumed her contemplation of them both. Dorothea could not read her expression at all

* * *

 

“It just felt as if it was going to go on for ever. And then everyone keeps talking how they can’t wait for things to get back to normal. It might be like that for some older people. Only… there isn’t a normal to go back to. At least, not for everyone. Jackie will come back to Low Farm and they won’t want to keep me on. Won’t be able to, really. I suppose they’re paying me out of his pay. So maybe it will be back to normal for him. He said he wanted to see more of the world, and he has, but keeping the farm going another generation is what matters to him really. And I don’t suppose it will make a huge difference to Nancy. John will still be in the navy, and she’ll still be here, sailing and walking and looking after Jane and teaching her to sail.”

“Not yet, surely?”

“No – not yet.” Bridget laughed. “And they might get to live somewhere else for a bit, depending where John is posted. I can hardly remember it – but I suppose we probably did. I remember living somewhere with monkeys anyway and missing the others, and then coming back and missing Daddy.”

“I suppose Susan will go back to nursing in an ordinary hospital?”

“She might. But there really isn’t any reason why she shouldn’t just carry on where she is. The same with Roger really.”

“He never could decide between Cambridge and the RAF.” Dorothea said.

“That makes me feel better about not being able to decide.” Bridget said. “A pity he isn’t here to talk to, really. Although I suppose he had his mind made up for him.

“He did rather. What are you deciding between?” Dorothea asked, putting down her hair brush and getting into bed herself.

Bridget rolled over on her side.

“That’s the problem. It’s all so vague. I suppose the first thing is to decide whether I want to go straight into a job or have any more education. Only, I feel a bit old to be going back to a school and do my Highers.”

“I’m sure lots of places will make allowances, and so on because of the war. Only might you have to wait until next year until you start anything. We’re in September now.”

“Yes,” Bridget yawned again, “and for all I know, I might have to wait a year for Jackie to be demobbed. I somehow thought when I was younger that wars just stopped – just like that, suddenly.”

“I think I did too.” Dorothea admitted.

“You can leave the candle lit for a bit if you want to read. I’ll fall asleep anyway. Goodnight.”

Dorothea for once did not feel like reading, but the breathing from the other bed had changed before she had arranged her bedclothes and blown out the candle.

However, welcome the Blacketts had made her, she could not stay here for long.  She would give herself a fortnight, Dorothea decided. Three weeks at the most. She must make her decision before then.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

“Post for you on the hall table.” said Nancy, straightening up from the mangle, eyes shining. Bridget doubted her own return from work had elicited such a response. She dismounted from her bicycle and wheeled it into the garage, next to Rattletrap, still up on blocks.

 “And one for me, from John.” Nancy continued, smiling. “He’s got a week’s leave in a week’s time. He’s coming here for the whole of it.”

Bridget grinned. “Where are the others?”

“Dot’s writing in Uncle Jim’s study. The babies are sleeping – I hope. Peggy’s sailed across to Rio in _Amazon–_ rumours of tinned goods on points. Mother is busy looking up how you write a note to a dowager Duchess in that dreadful book of Aunt Maria’s.”

“The one that says a lady should never let a gentleman carry a parcel for her – and that a gentleman should never let a lady carry a parcel.”

“And about not being seen without gloves – that’s the one.”

“As rudely as possible, I should think, considering how nasty she’s been to Dot.” said Bridget.

“This is the Dowager Duchess, Gerry’s grandmother, not his mother. I don’t know that she has been nasty to Dot. I met her once – she seemed friendly enough. A bit fluffy perhaps.”

“Anyway, why is she writing to _your_ mother? Mrs Callum, maybe, if she wants to complain about Dot. Maybe someone should complain to this Duchess about her wretched daughter-in-law!”

Nancy laughed. “It would be pretty hard lines on _your_ mother if women are responsible for everything their daughters-in-law did!”

Bridget looked at Nancy seriously. “You know she likes you a lot.”

“I’m very fond of her. But it’s still bad enough people starting on Mother when I scandalise people, without them starting on your mother too.”

Bridget frowned. “You said writing a note?”

“Yes.” Nancy had resumed her mangling.

“Not a letter?”

“That’s right.”

“So if she was sitting at home somewhere in…..Norfolk?”

“Somewhere flat anyhow.”

“It would be a letter.”

“That’s right. So this grandmother  is somewhere in the area.”

“Rio. And proposing to call on Mother at the earliest time that suits Mother.”

“So there are no tinned goods on points.” Bridget grinned at her sister-in-law. “Two questions. Tomorrow _isn’t_ going to be convenient, is it?”

“We still have a prior engagement.” Nancy confirmed. Her voice was solemn. Her eyes were not.  “There probably is some tinned stuff. We just don’t have very many points.”

“And why Peggy and not you?”

“She’s seen me once at the theatre, with Dorothea. The dowager I mean. It was ages ago, long before the war, but there’s still a chance she might recognise me. Plus everyone _knows_ Peggy’s a chatterbox. If I start asking questions, everyone suspects I’m up to something.”

“You usually are.” Bridget said.

“Oh, go and read your letters. One looks as if it is from your mother.  See when she’s coming to see John.”

* * *

 

“Next Thursday.” Bridget’s voice floated in from the hall.

Dot surfaced briefly from her work. Thursday what?

“She does know she’s welcome for the whole week, doesn’t she?” came Mrs Blackett’s voice.

“Yes, but Susan is home too, with a friend.”

“It will be lovely to see Susan too. We haven’t seen her since last summer. Do you think it might be awkward for them to leave the friend? I’ll write and say that of course she’ll be very welcome too. Perhaps Susan and her friend wouldn’t mind camping on the lawn? Or perhaps they would prefer to sleep in the houseboat. So many people have lost families and homes.”

Dorothea remembered that, however good this might be for dialogue, this was eavesdropping. It was one thing with total strangers on buses and trains. After all, they could see you. It was quite another to listen from another room.

“Hello, Bridget.” Dorothea came to the door.

“Hello. John’s coming home on leave in a week’s time and Mother’s coming on Thursday.”

“And I hope Susan can come too. You’ll stay a bit longer to see them, won’t you?” Anyone would think that Mrs Blackett wasn’t worried about how to fit everyone in. Perhaps she really wasn’t. Dorothea would be happy enough to sleep in the Dog’s home or camp on the lawn if that would help.

Bridget shook her head. “I’m sorry, but Susan can’t come. She has promised to go to her friend’s house.”

“I think I’d better stick to the original plan, but it is very kind of you, Mrs Blackett. I’m sorry to miss seeing Susan, but it will be lovely to see John. I haven’t seen either of them since the war started.”

Both Mrs Blackett and Bridget looked startled.

“I hadn’t realised it was that long.” said Mrs Blackett.

“I’ll go and tell Nancy.” said Bridget and returned to the mangle, letter in hand. She was bursting to tell someone her other news. Mother had been quite definite about only telling family for the time being. Nancy _was_ family, Bridget reasoned. Perhaps you could argue that made Peggy family, too, but that would mean that you could also count Dorothea as family in the same way. There was after all another connection there. Bridget was sure her mother had not intended her to tell Dot.

Nancy was as pleased with the news as Bridget could desire.

“And as for telling Peggy – she had a letter this morning too – and I’d be quite surprised if she didn’t know more about it than any of us. But it would be pretty beastly to go whispering in corners about it with Dot around. It might put her in an awkward position if she knew, and someone else closer didn’t. We’ll just have to wait until your mother arrives.”

“It isn’t as if Dot hasn’t kept that sort of secret herself.” Bridget said.

Nancy nodded, uncharacteristically subdued. “Poor Dot. I hope this grandmother is as decent as we think.”

In the hall, Mrs Blackett looked at Dorothea. “I was going to suggest Monday, for tea.” she said. “There isn’t any point in leaving it any longer. It just leaves you longer to worry. I know you all want to sail tomorrow and it would be very unfair on Bridgie to take up her day off.”

“Thank you.” Dorothea said.

Mrs Blackett said gently to her, “I really think it will be alright. Lord Peter always spoke highly of his mother’s understanding. I don’t think she is in the least like the Duchess, you know. It was pretty obvious Lord Peter had fled to us – well, Bob really, he had never met me until he came to Beckfoot- because his sister-in-law was making things intolerable at Duke’s Denver. Anyway, your grandmother-in-law is visiting me. She hasn’t said anything in her note to suggest she actually knows you’re here. You could go out for the afternoon and avoid her altogether if you wanted to.”

“Yes.” Dorothea admitted.

 Mrs Blackett smiled. “But you aren’t going to. You’ve done pretty well on facing up everything else head on.”

Dorothea looked startled.

“Oh, I noticed. And I hope my little girls aren’t doing anything to make it harder for you.”

Dorothea laughed. “Oh, of course not.  They wouldn’t. People do sometimes without meaning to.”

“They make such a point of not mentioning their husbands at all, or do nothing but complain about them.” Mrs Blackett said.

“Or go on about how terribly difficult it is having children or sort of pull their children away as if you’ve already complained about them. Or they offer their baby to be cuddled by everyone else, but not you.” Dorothea said. “Not that there’s been much chance, really, but a few friends from school have had babies.”

“At least I didn’t have that.” Mrs Blackett said. “And I’m sorry not to have more mother-in-law advice to give you. I had known Bob’s mother since I was a child, of course, so it was different. More like Nancy and Mary really. Bob’s mother died not long after we were married, but she lived long enough to know that Nancy was on the way, so she died looking forward to something. That’s why we called Nancy, Ruth.”

“It always helped a great deal, just knowing that this – Beckfoot, the Lake, the hills and you were here and I could come if things got too bad.”

“I hope it always will.”

* * *

 

The mate’s whistle was once more in use.

“Across the line from where I am to the flag pole, round Wild Cat island and back across the line.” Peggy kept station in the Beckfoot rowing boat, with the occasional small stroke of her oars.

“Can you remember exactly where you are now?” Bridget asked.

“Probably. It’s wherever I am, anyway. I’ll whistle once when you’ve got a minute to go, twice for thirty seconds and three times for the start.”

It was so long since she had sailed. Oh, Dorothea had sailed every day since she had arrived at Beckfoot, but it had been so long before that. She could tell that Nancy was giving her a chance. Dorothea realised that Nancy was being a bit slow to cross the imaginary line deliberately. Running before the wind, down to Wild Cat Island, Dorothea managed to keep _Scarab_ ahead of _Swallow_ and not too far behind _Amazon._ It would be a different matter when it came to tacking back up the lake.

* * *

 

There would be time to check on the babies, tidy up a little and write a letter to Jim, Peggy decided as she walked up the lawn from the boat house.

_Dear Jim,_

_Our daughter is at the moment being absolutely angelic, from which you may deduce that she is asleep. She holds up her head a little when I put her on her tummy, although she can’t yet do it for very long. Trees – or rather I suspect- the leaves are still an endless source of fascination. She doesn’t pay much attention to the mobile Uncle Jim bought however, which I think is because…._

The telephone. Please let it not be anything bad. Not now.

“Yes…No, that’s quite alright. I’m sure they will be able to. If they can’t… yes, I’ve got a pencil…yes a message at that number…. before six o’clock….I’ll go now and tell them. No, it’s no trouble. I’ve got a bicycle.”

Her mother and cook were standing silently in the hall by the time Peggy had hung up.

“A message for those people who’ve taken the cottage for the summer. Good news, not bad though. Their son’s back. Not been demobbed yet of course, but he has some leave and wants them to meet him at some cousin’s nearer where he is.”

“Weren’t you meant to be judging the race?” Mother asked.

“Yes, but if I get a move on I’ll just manage it.”

The bicycle saddle was still adjusted for Bridget, who was taller, but Peggy could manage it, just about.

* * *

 

To Dick’s private exasperation over the years, Dorothea had been quite right when she suggested that she would to better at the tiller of _Scarab_ if she didn’t think too much about what she was doing.  This worked well enough when _Scarab_ was running before the wind. Dorothea had privately decided to do whatever Nancy did in deciding which way to go round Wild Cat Island. She had no doubt that Bridget’s judgement, too, would be better than her own, but _Scarab_ shared more similarities with _Amazon._ Tack required much more thought however, and Dorothea kept second guessing herself, hesitating too long or rushing into a change of tack sooner than she needed. _Scarab_ had lost more way than she needed to, and _Amazon_ and _Swallow_ were both well head of Scarab before they had reached the islands about Rio.

This time she had held on too long, was coming too close to the shore, which formed a little shallow bay at this point between the cottage that was often rented out in summer and the Beckfoot promontory. The road came closest to the shore here and she could see.

“Peggy!”

What had gone wrong? What dreadful calamity had sent Peggy cycling so furiously along the shore road?

Already half committed to going about, Dorothea managed to more or less beach _Scarab_ on the narrow strip of shingle. The best you could say of it was that _Scarab_ was unhurt and even in her anxiety, Dorothea was glad that only Peggy was there to see, and perhaps she had been too busy coming to a halt herself on the loose gravelly surface to see quite how badly Dorothea had done the thing.

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

Both of them spoke at once. Explanations made, Peggy glance towards the promontory.

“Well, I was pushing my luck if I thought I was going to get back in time anyway.”

She watched as _Amazon_ and _Swallow_ disappeared behind the heather tufted rock.

“It looks as if Nancy won.” Dorothea said.

“Only a few yards in it. Nancy isn’t trying that hard. Or maybe Bridget is getting better.” Peggy frowned and then smiled. “Except I don’t think she has. Won this time I mean. Stay there a minute.”

Peggy went back to the road, picked up the bicycle and wheeled it back to where she had left a groove in the gravel and dried earth. Next time she would take the time to lower the saddle. She had come close to landing in an undignified heap. Her guess had been right. She could see the promontory with its flag pole. She could see Dot in _Scarab._ Dot was quite clearly to the left.

“You’ve won, Dot.”


	5. Chapter 5

_Not quite like the great-aunt_ , Nancy thought, although they must be about the same age. There was the same upright bearing, achievable with a backboard in girlhood and corsetry in later years. The dowager duchess was perhaps less rigid. Nancy hoped this reflected a less rigid outlook rather than merely more expensive undergarments. Honoria (Nancy had looked it up) Wimsey wore her skirts long, a few inches above the ankle – the same length as Aunt Maria. Lots of people had, when Nancy was younger. Nowadays that particular length said “old lady”. One who had sufficient frocks and costumes in her wardrobe that she did not have to spend precious coupons on utility clothing.

Nancy would have worn comfortables for sailing anyway, but today they functioned as a sort of first test. Her shorts were faded and patched; she had put on an old shirt of John’s before setting out for Rio. Jane still appeared to regard “solids” as a form of entertainment rather than sustenance.  The shirt Nancy had put on this morning was so liberally adorned with mashed carrot that even Nancy could not convince herself it did not matter. She glanced at her wristwatch, stopped lurking inconspicuously by the plaster pillar and walked across the entrance hall to the reception desk. In sandshoes her feet made little sound on the black and white tiles. Even so the Dowager Duchess turned around when Nancy was half way across the floor.

“Mrs Walker? Or Mrs Brading perhaps?”

Mother’s note had simply said, “It will be easier if my daughter collects you with her sailing dinghy.” So the Dowager Duchess had done a little research too? Not that the information would be hard to come by, but still, she had bothered to ask.  (Nancy knew that their neighbours tended to refer to Jim Brading as “him that married Molly Blackett’s younger lass.” John was still “the lad who sank Jackson’s boat”, although Nancy suspected he was called other things too, when she wasn’t the one hearing them.) Perhaps the Duchess was not as fluffy as she had seemed at the theatre. Of course a woman in her late twenties who appeared at the appointed time and place would likely be there to fetch her, but none of the great-aunt’s Harrogate cronies would for a minute think that anyone dressed as Nancy was would be expecting to have afternoon tea with a Duchess.

Nancy had not expected the Duchess to keep pace with her own usual energetic stride. She was after all a grandmother and, if Lord St. George had lived, would presumably have been a great- grandmother by now. The old lady stepped into _Amazon_ with very little fuss, made sure she had understood exactly where Nancy wanted her to sit, and set herself to enjoy the short voyage across the lake.

* * *

 

… _Not quite what I expected. I don’t think the fluffiness is entirely put on, but it was less in evidence than that time I met her with Aunt Helen. I also had the feeling that she was pumping me rather more successfully than I was pumping her._ John grinned. Nancy wouldn’t like that at all. _I imagine people call her sweet and charming a great deal of the time. Cook had put on a black dress, white apron, little frill on her head, the works. I haven’t seen her in that frock since the summer Titty and Roger discovered Swallowdale. Actually, she hadn’t been able to fit into it for a while after that and it was only the GA who tried to make her wear it! She made sure she was much in evidence serving tea, “Your gracing” ferociously and addressing Dot as “Miss Dorothea” or “Miss Dot” at every available opportunity. She always has been fond of Dot. I think the Duchess got Cook’s message anyway!_ Johnwasn’t entirely sure he understood it, however. Surely if Mrs Braithwaite had wanted to make a point she would have addressed Dot as “my lady” or Lady St George. Except, of course, that the Duchess would always outrank Dot. It wasn’t as if they were actual ranks that meant something.  Of course - that was the point! Mrs Braithwaite was making it clear that she knew about ranks and titles and proper forms of address and she didn’t set much store by them. Jolly good for Cook. _You’ll find out the rest when you get here next week – if I don’t get this in the post now there will be little point sending it._

_With love from Jane (if she could understand that a letter isn’t just something to splutter food on) and lots and lots of love from Nancy._

* * *

Jim Brading smiled. Peggy’s letters were nearly as cheerful and lively as Peggy herself.

 _I was expecting a mixture of the great aunt and Lady Catherine de Burgh. I don’t know if you ever had to read_ Pride and Prejudice. _We had it once as a holiday task and the GA made the mistake of asking Nancy which character she thought had the most reprehensible conduct. There’s no chance of either of us forgetting Lady Catherine after that. Nancy gave such a detailed answer, but never actually made any explicit comparisons, so the GA just had to sit there going all sorts of interesting colours! It serves her right for not just taking Nancy’s word that she had read it!_

_You see what an afternoon with the Dowager Duchess of Denver has done to me? She diverts from one thing to another rather like that. Quite fun once you get used to it. And I think Dot will have the chance to get used to it after all._

_Things were going a lot better than we expected, although Nancy would catch my eye and I did have to “go and check on Susie” once. I’m not quite sure how, but the Dowager did manage to leave the impression that the Duchess (Gerry’s mother) is rather inclined to speak on behalf of other people without them even knowing she’s doing it, or agreeing. Anyway, she did ask Dorothea to show her around what’s left of the shrubbery (!) (_A pretty kind of wilderness was it? Jim had read Pride and Prejudice and enjoyed it more than he expected, but that had been a long time ago.) _(which is when I nearly got the giggles) and Dorothea came back quite a bit happier and took the Dowager back to Rio in_ Scarab.

* * *

 

“Bredon tickles trout very well.” said the Duchess. “I hope you will teach the other two boys as well when they’re old enough.”

“Harriet and Peter have been very kind to me. I regard them as very good friends.” Dorothea could not help putting a little emphasis on the last word.

“I’m sure your friendship does Harriet a great deal of good. She gets on very well with Mary and Charles, but apart from Peter himself, I don’t think the Wimseys have a great deal to offer someone as clever as Harriet in intellectual companionship.”

“I don’t think one has to spend all ones time with friends in deep intellectual discussion.” Dorothea said.

“It’s nice to have the choice sometimes.” said the Duchess, “but I’m glad you said that, because I hope you will consider coming to stay with me sometimes.”

“Thank you, but I think under the circumstances…” Dorothea did not know quite how to finish.

“I live in the Dower House not the Hall; perhaps Gerry mentioned it. I dare say once things get back to normal a little bit more Helen will go back to spending a lot of time visiting friends and so on, except when she is in London for the season. If there is a season. She will most probably be at Duke’s Denver for less than half the year.”

“I see.” said Dorothea.

“I feel, you know, that you should be able to call the Dower House your home. I do understand that you might want to live in London, or here, or visit different places to get local colour for your books - I think they call it that, don’t they? Gerald feels that the family should offer you a home you can feel happy in and of course he is right, as I told him, but of course two hundred years ago people didn’t live as long, only he will keep worrying away at the problem out loud, only eventually….”

“Eventually, he is quite likely to predecease Helen, and of course the Dower House will be her home then. I don’t want any favours at all you know. I thought I’d made that quite clear to Peter.” Dorothea’s reply earned an approving nod from the Dowager Duchess.

“Oh you did. Luckily, he is quite used to all that with Harriet, who is most fearsomely independent although it’s just as well really, because if she had married him five years earlier, Bredon would be five years older and we might have lost...”

“I don’t think Bredon would have been old enough to fight, even so.” Dorothea said gently. “And I’m glad of it.”

“So for as long as I am above ground, I hope you will feel able to just telephone and say that you are coming, in just the same way as Peter does, only I do rather suspect that you will be less trouble than Peter. There’s an old typewriter in the estate office, Gerald says, getting beyond any use. It should go for scrap perhaps, but he thought you might like to have a look at it first. Harriet mentioned you could type.”

“A little. I can type as fast as I need to write my own stories and reports and so on, but I’m not good enough to make a career out of it.”

“I very much suspect there are more good typists than good writers, so I am glad of that. Harriet bought a few of your magazine stories and I did like them. I would very much like to see you write something longer. I do like stories where things happen and something good comes out of it in the end, although I daresay that’s very old-fashioned now. See what you think of it before we decide to send it for scrap, if that’s all it’s good for. Why don’t you come and have a look at it after you have visited your friends on the Broads? I’ll ask Gerald to bring it across and put it in your study until you come.”

And despite herself, Dorothea could not stop her eyes filling with tears.

* * *

 

“So shall you?” asked Bridget sleepily.

“It seems a pity not to try a novel – or a novella might go better, with the paper rationing.” Dorothea said thoughtfully.

“I meant, shall you go and live with this Dowager Duchess?”

“Not live – although she made it pretty clear on the journey back to Rio that by even just a visit she meant staying at least month. It might be sensible to visit for a week or two. If she can stand having me around, she can always ask me to stay longer and I can accept or have another visit I must go on depending.”

“Will you go back to living with your parents? It doesn’t matter where you are to write, does it?”

“Probably. At least, I think they expect me to. I suppose it depends a bit on where they find to live – and that will depend on what kind of job Father gets. There are only so many jobs for archaeology lecturers. He might decide just to concentrate on writing books. I expect things will be too unsettled for digs in lots of place.”

“When I went back to live with Mother after being evacuated the first time, I was homesick for here. Not just missing it, homesick. I couldn’t possibly tell Mother, that of course.”

“The lake is so beautiful. You can’t blame yourself for that. And it wasn’t as if you were going back to a home you had actually lived in before.”

“I suppose.” said Bridget, plumping up her pillow more comfortably and settling herself to sleep.

* * *

 

“Not while she’s eating, John.”

“She likes it.”

“Yes, but she tries to do whatever you do.”

John blew one last raspberry, to his daughter’s delight.

Nancy handed him his knapsack and shrugged her own onto her shoulders.

“Be a good girl, Jane.”

Jane accepted the kiss from her father with the solemn air of a queen receiving tribute, but her face began to crumple when she realised her mother, too, was about to depart. It did not develop into a full wail until they were outside the door. John turned to go back. Nancy put her hand on the door and shook her head.

“Wait a few minutes.”

They could hear Molly’s voice, the clatter of a spoon in a bowl.

A few more wails. Then all seemed to be calm within the kitchen.

“Come on.” Nancy whispered.

The original plan for the day had been to sail, but there was so little wind that Dorothea had chosen instead to row to see the Dixons and Nancy had decided a picnic in Swallowdale would be better than a trip to Wild Cat Island.  John wondered vaguely why the knapsacks containing the food seemed so bulky, but not especially heavy. Why did they actually need two knapsacks, anyway? Perhaps they were carrying a particularly large share of the Beckfoot’s abundant lettuce harvest.

There was something else he was intending to ask Nancy without other ears, or other distractions.

“What’s this I’m hearing about Bridget and this Alf? He was the one staying with Miss Hetty and Miss Letty wasn’t he?”

“Would this be hearing, as in hearing from Mr Jackson?”

They had sailed to Holly Howe yesterday and then gone on to air out the houseboat a little.

“Something of the sort.”

“Alf and Bridget are good friends.” said Nancy. “Good enough friends for him to write.”

“So where is he now?”

“In Palestine, doing his national service. At least I assume he’s there now. The last letter was written travelling through France by in the luggage rack of a train.”

“Letters that get passed around?”

“Letters that get passed around.” Nancy confirmed. “Look, would you have passed a letter from me around when we were both still at school? It isn’t as if there was anything particular in them, as I recall.”

“I still wouldn’t have passed them round.” John admitted. “Not that there was anyone to pass them to.”  

“I didn’t show yours to Peggy, either. So, just friends, I suspect, however much other people think it should be otherwise.”

“Mr Jackson did seem to go out of his way to tell me what a good lad Alf was.” John admitted.

“He is. Unfortunately Elspeth doesn’t see it. At least not like that. So I rather think poor Bridget has been getting Alf pouring out his woes about Elspeth.”

“And everyone else has been getting the wrong idea?”

“And Bridget doesn’t hand round letters from Elspeth, and doesn’t say much about what she’s doing, even to Mother, except to say that she’s not very happy.”

“Poor Bridget!”

“It’s rotten for her.”

“You don’t suppose that Bridget likes Alf as rather more than a friend?” John asked.

“I don’t think so. But your sisters are very good at keeping their private feelings to themselves.”

“I have to admit that Susan’s news was a bit of a surprise. Titty wears her heart on her sleeve, though.” said John.

Nancy let the matter drop but did not agree with him.

* * *

 

They went to the watchtower first and then down into Swallowdale itself.

“There’s firewood in the cave, and Bridget said they’d left the kettle there.” Nancy said

 John filled the kettle and Nancy unpacked the knapsacks. She had brought two towels. She nodded towards the stream. It looked as though the rocks in the stream had been rearranged to provide an enlarged bathing pool since he had last been here, John thought, although he could not really remember. Nancy began to unbutton her shirt.

“It’s early yet. I thought we could have a bathe, or whatever, before we have lunch.”

It would have been better, John thought, if Nancy had wanted to swim properly, to walk along the road and down to Horseshoe Cove, where they had the entire lake to swim in, and then walk up to Swallowdale along the stream. Still, the early September day was very warm and a wallow in the bathing pool was  an attractive prospect.

John reached over to the knapsack, only half watching what he was doing. It was another minute or so, and Nancy was completely undressed, before he turned both knapsacks inside out.

“What are you looking for?” Nancy asked.

“You appear to have forgotten the bathing costumes.”

“What do we need them for? There isn’t anyone for miles around. I haven’t forgotten anything.” Nancy grinned at him, her eyes sparkling.

John grinned, “So,” he said, “bathing or whatever. Which first?”

Nancy returned his smile. “Whichever you prefer.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With many thanks to Fergus Mason for lots of information about the Broads and about fishing.  
> In my imagination, the Coots in the North did happen, although not perhaps exactly in the way described in the notes published in 1988. I am therefore assuming that the Death and Glories, but not the other Coots have spent a week, perhaps two, with the Swallows and Amazons at the Lake after the great aunt went home. I believe Ratty died, much mourned, at a ripe old age at some time after Great Northern? and before the outbreak of war after a busy and fulfilling life.  
> “You could get another rat.” said Bill sadly, “but it wouldn’t be Ratty.”  
> “Wouldn’t be fair on a young rat – always being compared.” Joe agreed.

“ _Taken some worms and gone fishing for perch.”_ Joe’s mum had said, so Dorothea had tried the staithe first. Joe wasn’t there, so she retraced her steps, and then continued past Jonnatt’s, past Mrs Barrable’s bungalow, past the doctor’s house, past the Farland’s house and the wilderness and past the remains of the Ferry Inn (bomb damage, Mrs Barrable had said).

“I thought you’d be along.” Joe said.

Dot sat down next to him. “I was sorry to hear about Pete.”

 Joe nodded. “Mrs Barrable told Mum about your husband. I’m sorry.”

It was her turn to nod.

The pauses didn’t seem to matter so much when you were fishing.

“I’ve not got the heart to take old Death and Glory out. Not” he added deliberately, “with the other two gone.”

Dot turned to him quickly, something very like horror on her face.

“Bill too?”

“Yes. The Normandy landings.”

“I’m sorry.”

Joe nodded again. “Admiral’s always been a bit forgetful.”

“She wouldn’t forget Bill.” Dorothea said hotly. He had been right to make sure they had this conversation away from other ears.

“As she was – no. And she hasn’t forgotten Bill any more that the rest of us have. But I think she may have forgotten he’s dead. Or perhaps she has forgotten that she hasn’t told you. Only she’s getting more and more like that. She remembers the past well enough, I reckon. Mum thinks so, anyway. How old is Mrs Barrable? Would you know?”

“She taught Mother.” Dot was thinking aloud. “So she’s probably at least ten years older. Maybe more. She’s probably at least in her sixties. Maybe her seventies. She did say something once about having sat on the knee of someone who fought at Waterloo.”

Joe frowned. “Say he was fifteen in 1815.”

“And suppose he lived to eighty.” Dot added.

“It’s a fair innings – but some do.” Joe conceded.

“So she could have been born in 1880 or so. Mother was born in 1894. ”

“Anyway, Mum went to have a word with Mrs Dudgeon about it just yesterday. Mum was wondering if you had that brother’s address. Richard, I thought the name was. He’s been in America a long time.”

“But he was there when the war broke out. You can’t expect him to..”

“I don’t. He’s too old to fight anyway, and it’s better him being a mouth to feed there than a mouth to feed here.  He did his bit last time. I’m just after saying he can’t be expected to know what his sister doesn’t tell him. Mebbe it would be better your mum writing.”  

“I’ll see what I can do.” Dot promised. “We’re invited round to the Dudgeons’ this afternoon, so I might get a chance for a word with Mrs Dudgeon with the Admiral out of earshot.”

Joe supposed he’d better tackle the other bit of news. He didn’t, himself, think it would matter much to Dot, except that she’d be pleased and perhaps a little sad thinking of her dead husband. The notion had been Bill’s originally, and it was loyalty to Bill which pushed Joe to speak now. The idea had been so unlike Bill that, even at the time, he had been forced to consider it. It had been that last Easter the Callums had spent on the Broads, the one after the trip to the Hebrides, when Dick had made what Mr Farland called “his slight stir in ornithological circles” and Tom was swotting so much for exams the Coots saw him only every other day.

_“I’m not saying that Dot’s sweet on our Tom, leastways not yet. Not exactly.” Bill had said one night over supper in the Death and Glory._

_And the other two had been so startled, either by this thought or the fact that Bill would think it, that they had stopped eating, forks full of steak and kidney pudding half-way to their mouths._

_It had been Pete who recovered first. “Nah,” he had said, “you know how soft-hearted Dot is. She’s just sorry for him, ‘cause he’s missing out on bird protection stuff.”_

_“Anyway, she’s just a kid.” Joe had dismissed the idea._

_“She ain’t though. Not really. She just seems it, sometimes.” Bill had said._

_“Clever though. Look how she caught George Owden out, trying to frame us for casting off them boats.” Pete had said._

_“I never said she weren’t clever.” Bill had persisted. “She’s old enough to have left school. Joe’s leaving, end o’this term, and Dot’s older’n him.”_

_“She don’t talk like she’s a goin’ to leave.” Pete had said._

_“I ain’t said she’s going to. I said she could. She’ll probably do certificates and that. Be a teacher or summat.” Bill had explained._

_Joe had frowned. Tom’s time was already too taken up with swotting to leave much for bird protection. If a girl was going to take what little time was left, it would be down the Death and Glories by themselves again, Port and Starboard still being in that school in France that seemed to have such short, and strange, Easter holidays. Still, if it had to be a girl, then Dot was the one he would have chosen for Tom. At least she would see the importance of bird protection._

_“That Dot ‘ud never keep order.” Pete had said._

_“Girls’ school. Young ladies and that.” Bill wasn’t going to be wrong if he could help it. “Point is, she may be sweet on him or she may not, but I ain’t seen no sign of him being sweet on her.”_

_“He likes her well enough.” Pete had protested._

_“That, young Pete, is an entirely different matter.” Bill had said._

_Joe had thought it time to intervene. “Mebbe she is, and mebbe she ain’t, but it’s none of our business anyhow. Don’t go gabbing this to anyone else.”_

Dorothea was sitting quietly, as lost in her own thought as Joe had been in his.

“That’ll be because Tom’s home. Come back the day before yesterday with his new wife. They went to see her mother first, Mrs Dudgeon told Mum. I’ve not met her yet. She’s a nurse, Mum said. Seemed very nice and very pretty.” Joe kept talking, watching Dot’s face. Surprise. Interest. Sadness? Had Bill the pessimist been right after all?

“I’m glad.” said Dot, “Tom deserves to be happy. And now – well they’ve got a good chance of being happy together for a long time.” 

 _Of course,_ thought Joe, this would make her think of her dead husband. Was it a month, Mrs Barrable had said, they’d been married before he was killed. When had Mum written with the news? After Dunkirk it was, and Joe was almost sure it had been before the blitz. There was another question Joe wanted to ask.

“Admiral said Dick was wed too. She couldn’t remember his wife’s name, though, except it was something strange and he’d met her doing scientific work.”

“He’d met her before that, although they did work at the same place. You’ve met her too. Dick’s married to Titty Walker.”

Joe smiled properly for the first time in what had felt like too long.

“Well, I never.” He said. “Good for old Dick. I always did like Titty Walker.”

* * *

 

And of course, Dorothea _was_ pleased for Tom. It was a long time since she had thought of him as a romantic hero, the original of the “Outlaw of the Broad”, which and had filled so many exercise books and become so unlikely with each new twist and turn of the tale.

It was still there, somewhere, in her trunk and perhaps there would be some blank pages in a few of the exercise books.  Mrs Barrable was absorbed in painting.  Dorothea could find a few blank spaces and start to sketch out the plan for a short story at least.

  1.   Overloaded with adjectives and adverbs. Uneven. Here was a bit where she had made each paragraph a single sentence long. Why had she done that? Here was that bit she had written after that lesson on punctuation. Miss Davies had chidden them for lack of imagination and recommended the use of semi-colons one English lesson; every girl in Dot’s form had made it a point of honour to use them as much as possible in every piece of written work for a at least a week.



Here was the bit with the outlaw trapped in the upper storey of a barn. How had he escaped from that? She read on to find out and by the time she had reached the end of the tale it was time to go and prepare lunch. Mrs Barrable was still absorbed in her work, a study of a few clay plant pots and a trowel in pastels.

* * *

 

Mrs Barrable seemed to have no expectation of seeing Tom, as they walked down Lower Street to the Dudgeons. Had she been told and forgotten? Or had Joe let slip something that was intended to be a surprise. Dorothea had only a few hundred yards to make up her mind about how surprised she should seem.

No decision was required of her. Dorothea was as astonished as anyone could possible want, and was considerably more surprised than Mrs Barrable. So was Mrs Tom Dudgeon. Tom himself appeared to be enjoying the reactions.

“Susan!”

“Dot!”

There was a moment’s delighted incredulity, and then Susan and Dot burst into delighted laughter.

 “I really should have put it all together.” Susan said.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Mrs Dudgeon.

“I gather you both know each other,” said Mrs Barrable, “but how? Was it school?”

“Not school.” Dot said. “You remember me mentioning the Walkers? We met them in the Lake District, the Christmas holiday before we came to stay with you.”

“I remember you’d met some children.” Mrs Barrable frowned. “And one of them was called Roger, and one called Nancy, and one had mumps, but I can’t remember the details. Wasn’t it one of them that Dick married? The girl with the funny name? I’m afraid I can’t remember it.”

“That would be my sister Titty.” Susan said.

 “I shouldn’t really have been so surprised.” said Susan. “Only I thought you were still at Beckfoot.  It’s so long since they’ve seen you, I’m surprised they let you get away that quickly. You’d mentioned the Coot Club, of course, and so had Tom, so I thought there was probably a connection. But I remembered there were lots of the Coot Club spread all over the place and lots of rushing around on bicycles, so I wasn’t sure whether you did actually know each other. Tom had mentioned a friend called Dick of course, who like birds, but then he didn’t mention him again -”

Here Susan paused and directed a rather challenging look at her husband. You couldn’t call it a glare exactly, but it came close.

“Well, at first I didn’t realise there was a connection. And then after what you said  - well, I didn’t want to miss out on getting to know you.” Tom said.

Susan grinned. “And then you thought you’d surprise me?”

“Something of the sort. You would have found out anyway, when we went to visit Titty and Dick. I didn’t know Dot was going to be here of course, I thought she’d be -” Tom bit off the end of that sentence abruptly, as if someone had pinched him. Dot felt grateful to Susan. She was still not certain how she felt about her encounters with Duchesses. Each meeting, taken separately, seem straightforward enough. It was together that they promised to be such a tangle.  

Dorothea was wished she could ask what Susan had said, but it might make things awkward. Luckily Dr Dudgeon, who had come in search of a quick cup of tea and a piece of apple-and-carrot cake between patients, seemed to have no such qualms.

“And what did Susan say?” he asked.

“That the rest of her family seemed bent on marrying – well, not exactly childhood sweethearts, but childhood friends.” Tom said, “And that one more would be getting beyond a joke.”

“Not,” Susan said hastily, “that I could think of anyone better for Titty than Dick.”

“I can’t think of anyone else apart from Titty who would understand Dick.” Dorothea said. “And you have to admit they haven’t exactly rushed into marriage either.”

“Fair point.” said Susan, with a slightly un-Susanish twitch of her mouth, her eyes meeting Dorothea’s. Dorothea had always thought of Susan as “one of the elders”, but remembered, almost startled, that Susan was only a year older than she was herself. It really didn’t feel as if Susan was that much older now.

“Anyway, I suppose we knew of each other as children – but that’s not the same thing as knowing each other _as_ children.” Tom pointed out.

When Dr Dudgeon returned to his next patient, the party naturally split into two. Mrs Barrable and Mrs Dudgeon remained in the drawing room, where they were later joined by “our baby”, home from school. “Our baby” was allowed one piece of cake and a cup of tea before being dispatched to do his homework in his bedroom.

Tom and Dot took Susan on a tour of the Coot Club shed and the wilderness, explaining how the Death and Glories had been falsely accused of casting boats off. There was no chance, Dorothea thought, of speaking to Mrs Dudgeon today.

“Tom…Tom…Dad says can you come and have a look at this victim. You might have seen more of it than he has.”

Tom followed his younger brother back to the house.

 “Did?” Dorothea didn’t know how to phrase the question she wanted. “Did you tell” no – that was far too intrusive- “Did they…” She stopped.

Susan smiled slightly. “I know it’s not impertinence, coming from you.”

She continued, “My parents knew about Tom, of course and that he’d asked me to marry him and that we were hoping to get married at the end of the war. We’d know each other for a lot longer than you and Gerry.”

“Thank you.” said Dot.

Susan looked surprised. “What for?”

“Not avoiding mentioning his name. People do sometimes.”

Susan smiled and, for perhaps the first time, Dorothea could see a slight similarity with Roger. “Except, I suppose I should be calling him Lord St George.”

“You wouldn’t be.” said Dorothea, “Not after the first introduction. Not after the war started. He told me that until the war, he’d never been absolutely sure he had any friends he had would still have been friends if he hadn’t been Lord St George. He tried so hard not to tell me who he was, but of course he realised I would work it out when he took me to see his uncle and aunt. I’d spotted the resemblance to Peter by then, but of course he couldn’t know that.”

“You saw Lord Peter at the John and Nancy’s wedding.” said Susan. “At least Mother has had the fun of helping organise one big wedding.”

“It was a pity in a way that Titty was so adamant about not having even a veil for her wedding. Nancy’s dress would have been too short, but I’m sure her veil would have been fine.”

“Some people don’t like the idea of a veil with an ordinary suit.” said Susan, rather hastily Dot thought. “Anyway, to go back to the question you didn’t ask, I did send Mother a telegram saying we were getting married. Tom wrote to his parents, so they wouldn’t have got the letter until after we were on our way home. I wrote to Bridget at Beckfoot, and told her she could tell family and only family. She wrote back and told me you were there. I never thought of her not telling you, to be honest. Mother just thought it was better not to have everyone round the lake knowing, in case someone knew the Dudgeons, and thought they should have been told by them. I thought it was pretty unlikely. There’s probably a letter from Titty following you around the country.”

“I’ll be here long enough for it to catch up with me.” said Dorothea. “How long are you staying?”

“Pretty much permanently.” said Susan. “We’ll be going up to Beckfoot tomorrow. We’ll only see John for a day or so, but that’s better than nothing, and we’ll see Bridget too. Maybe we’ll stay a week. Then we’ll visit Titty and Dick for a night or two, and then we’ll be back here. Will you still be here when we get back?”

“Probably.” Dorothea said, and found herself explaining the concerns over Mrs Barrable, although she had not intended to worry Susan with it at all.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story "dead pile" fits in before this, if you want to read it.

It had been one of his nightmares. He would come home and they would be all gone. They would not recognise him. They would all be dead. When it came to it, his nerve nearly failed and he would have got straight back onto the ‘bus to Wroxham, except that it had already left. His feet took him home anyway.  He peered over the gate at the side. There was washing in the yard. He remembered that tablecloth, that blouse of his mother’s. The door was locked.

A neighbour peered out from the door of the next house, with a strange scarf-thing twisted around her hair. He had never seen her before.

“She’s out. Gone along to the Doctor’s house.”

Mum was never ill. He felt sick.

The neighbour peered closer. “You’re a relative then? You’ve the look, but I haven’t seen you before.”

He nodded. “Only just got back.”

“You’ve not had much news of them for a while?”

“No.”

The neighbour nodded. He was about to go when she put her hand out to stop him.

“Look – sorry if I’m speaking out of turn to tell you – but mebbe it’s better me telling you than you asking and her having to tell you.” The woman took a deep breath. It was plain she did not much relish the task.

“Their son died. They thought they’d lost him before, after Dunkirk, but then they had a letter saying he was a prisoner, months later. But last year they had another one, saying he’d died of illness. They’re  that kind  - she was real good to me when my Mary was bad with the bronchitis and I thought we might lose her – but there – no-one ever gets over losing a child do they? And it don’t make no difference if the child’s grown or not.”

“Thanks.”

He sped up the road to the doctor’s house. By the time he got there, he wondered if he was doing this right. If Mum was ill, would a shock, even a happy shock, be good for her? He could ask for Tom’s mum and she could tell Mum.

He didn’t recognise the girl scrubbing the black and white square tiles in the porch.

“D’you want the Doctor?”

“No – no call to disturb him. His son – or Mrs Dudgeon.”

The girl dropped the brush back into the bucket with a plop and scurry off, motioning him to step over the wet area and stand on the inside mat.

“Here’s Mrs Dudgeon” The girl said, as if proud of some feat of conjuring.

“Can I help you?” she was pretty, this brown haired, grey –eyed young woman who appeared in the hall. She even looked slightly familiar, but he didn’t know her. The young man who came through from the back of house looked even more familiar, but looked at him with a polite lack of recognition. This was beginning to feel like one of those nightmares, only worse - not only had the people he knew failed to recognise him, but he couldn’t recognise them. And surely Tom would seem older not younger?

They stare at each other. Only the woman had not lost her self-possession. 

“I’m Tom Dudgeon’s wife.” she explained, “Can I help you?”

Suddenly the obvious truth dawned. “You’re Tom’s “our baby” – all grown up. I’d not have recognised you –‘cept that you look like Tom.”

The door of the consulting room flew open.

“You know that sounds exactly like – Pete!” and there was Tom, and he was indeed older and was as pleased to see Pete as Pete was to see him. And between the hand shaking and shoulder thumping , Tom, who always had been sensible, said to his brother “Don’t just stand there, idiot, go and get his mother!” But it seemed Tom’s wife had thought of that first, because he could hear an exclamation in the short passageway from the kitchen and there was Mum.

“Hello, Mum. I escaped.”

* * *

 

It was a while before he was sitting on the Dudgeon’s sofa next to his Mum, with a cup of tea in his hands. (Tom’s wife made a very good cup of tea.) “Our baby”, who had wisely decided that now was not the best time to point out that he had a name, had been sent running off to fetch Pete’s Dad from Jonnatt’s.

“Was I imagining it, or was Dot here?” Pete asked after the first rush of explanations was over.

“Yes, I don’t know where she went, though.” said Susan.

“Gone to tell Mrs Barrable?” Mrs Dudgeon suggested.

“Gone to tell Joe, more like.” said Tom.

“Bill too?” Pete asked hopefully.

They shook their heads.

“Normandy.” Tom said by way of explanation, and then realised it might mean nothing to Pete. “Just over a year ago.”

“Since he’s come back, Joe’s been fishing a lot. Jonnatt’s say they’ll give him his job back, but not just yet. He brings me perch, mostly, once or twice a week.” Mum said.

“Bill’s mum too, I bet.” said Pete. “But Port and Starboard – they’re alright?”

This time they all, except Susan, looked at each other before shaking their heads.

“Starboard’s alive,” said Tom. “but I wouldn’t say she was OK. They executed Port. In Paris. She was working with..she was in the resistance.”

And then Dot came in with Joe, and Dad arrived, breathing as if he’d been running, which he probably had, and Mrs Barrable arrived, saying that someone called Duke had come to speak to Dot and “our baby” came back in with more cups of tea and Mrs McGinty came in from next door and Mum started asking him again what had happened and how he had escaped and Dad reached over her to put a warning hand on her  shoulder as he had sometimes when Pete was little only Pete was taller now tall as his Dad and the arm rested heavily on his shoulders and across the back of his neck, heavy like the arm of a corpse and suddenly all the wordswere justsoundwithnomeaningandhesawhis cup fall and    smash   against   the   wood   block   floor.

When he dared to look up, the room was empty again. Nearly empty. His parents sat on either side of him. The brown-haired girl,(What was her name? Did it matter?) sat in one of the chairs opposite, waiting quietly as if she could wait a week or a month if she had to.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.” She smiled at him gently, as if it was all quite normal, as something like this happened every day of her life. 

The front door shut. The sitting room door opened cautiously. Tom exchanged glances with his wife, and then said to Pete and his parents.

“You might want to stay put for a bit. Avoid catching up with them going along the street. Mrs Barrable doesn’t walk so fast anymore.”

Tom had seen them to the front gate, Dorothea herding the others along gently, but firmly. Seeing  Bill’s mum coming along the road, he had hovered.  Dorothea and Joe between them seemed to have judged the situation well and seeing them ushering Bill’s mum in the general direction of the staithe, Tom had left them to it.

“Pete?” He looked up

“Do you want to come along tomorrow and let me give you a check-up? That’s if you trust the young doctor that is. You can see Dad, if you’d rather not see me. There’s plenty that would rather wait for Dad.”

Pete smiled, though it felt a little strange and weak. “Bet that old Mrs Tedder do.”

“She does.” Tom said.

****


	8. Bits and pieces- autumn 1945. Winter 1945/1946

“They’re really just the same.” Bredon explained. “It’s isn’t as if ponies are easier. Not to ride. Ponies can be stroppy little b… animals.”

He grinned at Dorothea, confident she would neither reprimand him or tell tales.

“Anyway, your legs will come in the wrong position on Apple. Winifred won’t mind you riding Acorn, honestly. I asked her. It isn’t as if I’m suggesting you ride _her_ horse _._ ”

There was no need to explain who _she_ was. Dorothea felt guilty that her bond of friendship with her young cousin-in-law was partly based on their shared dislike of the Duchess of Denver. It was also, Dorothea reminded herself, based on a shared admiration for the Dowager Duchess. Happy coincidence had required the younger Duchesses’ presence at a house party in Gloucestershire in the same week that Lord and Lady Peter had brought their sons to spend autumn half-term at Duke’s Denver. The Dowager Duchess had assured Dorothea that Helen would be off to see if there was going to be a little season in London as soon as she got back from Gloucestershire, and that really Dorothea might just as well stay another week at the Dower House, or better yet a fortnight.

Lack of attention to a riding lesson from Bredon would be as foolish as lack of attention to a sailing lesson from Nancy or Peggy. Dorothea did her best to concentrate.

* * *

 

_Dear John,_

_You know all those letters after you had been on leave which began “I’m not.” Well, my love, this isn’t one of them. The doctor of course says it’s too early to say and muttered something about wishful thinking. I’m quite sure I’m right and told him so. I haven’t said anything to Mother or Peggy or Bridget, but Peggy has suddenly appointed herself mangle-winder-in-chief and the fact that I can’t look a cup of tea in the face is a bit of a giveaway…._


	9. Chapter 9

 

**  1st June 1946 **

Nancy was being uncharacteristically fussy on the railway journey. She might almost be Susan, Mary thought. She’d far rather Nancy behaved like Nancy. Perhaps that was unfair to both girls. Susan could fuss quietly and, once Susan had checked something, it stayed checked. Nancy had looked at, fidgeted with and rearranged the small suitcase that they had brought into the carriage with them at least ten times since they had changed at Bristol, and not one of those times had she been quiet. By the time they changed again at Birmingham, Mary had wanted to scream at her daughter-in-law. Mary was being unfair, she knew. For four months, Nancy had been on her best behaviour. She had insisted on doing her share of the work. She had taken Jane for a walk whenever Mary had suggested it might be convenient and had stayed in to attend tea-parties (There was never enough food for any other kind.) when Mary had wanted her to. She had smiled sweetly and handed round cups of tea to the other wives, and made polite conversation without making any really startling suggestions. (The one about the darts board, to Mary’s astonishment, had proved a great success. She still had no idea where Nancy had managed to get the darts board from. She was fairly sure Nancy had lost deliberately a few times, too. Nancy could beat everyone at the game – including John and Ted, both of whom had a good eye for that sort of thing - when it pleased her.)

It wasn’t until they were on the ‘bus down to the landing stage, where Titty was to meet them, that Mary noticed Nancy glancing at her wristwatch. It was followed with the slightly unfocused gaze that indicated mental calculations.

“It isn’t as if Titty is going to go without us.” Mary said gently.

“What, oh that. Of course not.”

But a moment later, Nancy seemed cheerful enough again, pointing things out to Jane.

Titty had brought _Swallow_ and cheerfully waved a peculiar device.

“Dick invented it. A baby-sized life preserver.”

“Let’s get it on her then.” Nancy seemed in a hurry. Perhaps she was homesick, Mary thought. Perhaps she was just desperately tired and wanted to go to bed. Even Nancy must have limits to her energy.

Jane seemed inclined to grab hold of her new garment, but Titty got it on her efficiently. The holiday season had not really started, and they were threading their way out of Rio Bay and through the islands very briskly.

“Dick made it so that if she does fall in, it’ll float her face up.” Titty explained. “She can’t wriggle out of it. At least we think she can’t. That was the bit we couldn’t test out, of course.”

“She’s having a jolly good go.” Nancy observed. “You’ll have to show me how then straps go again later – you did it so quickly I couldn’t see.”

“Practice.” Titty replied with a grin. “Dick made an even littler one first, and I must have had it on and off that doll of yours fifty times. I hope you didn’t mind us using her. Mrs Blackett said you wouldn’t and the foot was already broken. We’ve not hurt her.”

“The parachute didn’t open the way we thought it would. I’m surprised you even found that doll. I don’t think I’ve even seen it since I was seven.” said Nancy, “I don’t know that you need to tell everyone about it though. We were very young then anyway. Dolls aren’t really pirati….” She broke off abruptly and looked at her watch again. Mary gazed at her in consternation. Even Titty glanced at her for a second, although she quickly resumed her focus on _Swallow._

“Titty.” Nancy sounded as though she was speaking between clenched teeth. “Get to Beckfoot as fast as you can. Please.”

* * *

 

Titty Callum was very relieved to see Dick waiting for them at the end of the Beckfoot lawn. She headed straight for the boathouse. There was nothing on the lawn to tie _Swallow_ up to. Dick waited for them at the boathouse and made _Swallow_ fast swiftly, without asking questions. That was one of the wonderful things about Dick, Titty thought. He never asked questions at the wrong time and you seldom had to explain anything to him.

“Keep hold of Jane a sec.” he told Titty, and helped Mary to help Nancy out on to the wooden staging.

“Do you need help to walk up to the house.” he asked.

“I don’t want to give birth halfway up the lawn. Get Mother.”

“And some clean towels.” Titty’s mother added.

“Take Jane with you.”

Mrs Blackett had seen the sail and was already coming down the lawn. Good. At least he didn’t have to search for her.

“Take the ones off the line.” she said. “It’s nearer and they aren’t the best ones.”

“Come on Jane.” he said when he had handed the towels over to Titty. “Let’s go and look at the ducks.” It would keep Jane occupied and he would be within easy shouting distance if they wanted him to fetch anything else.

* * *

****

****

_Dear John,_

_I’m guessing the telegram will have reached you by the time you read this, so you know that daughter number 2 is here. She weighs 6lb 13oz, but I expect that was in the telegram, too. She nearly arrived in a_ Swallow _in the middle of the lake! She’s absolutely fine and she did manage to wait until we were at Beckfoot – but only just. Being born in a boathouse is quite appropriate, I think. Even when we met Titty at the landing stage I thought there were hours yet – or even that it might be a false alarm. By the time we were half way to Beckfoot I was extremely glad that Titty was the one sailing – she does get more speed out of_ Swallow _than anyone but you, love._

_Titty brought Jane in to see the baby just now before bedtime. Jane stared at the baby for a long time, pointed at her and said “ickle” and then started to tell me about the ducks._

_Do you still want our new daughter to be called Julia? I haven’t told anyone else yet, just in case you changed your mind. She has quite a serious expression when she’s awake, so I think it would suit her._

_I’ve half-convinced myself that you’re going to come walking through the door any minute now. Yes, I know I’m being silly, but I miss you dreadfully, which is why I’m writing to you now, when I should be asleep. I shall have to confess to Titty and ask her to post this in the morning._

_I love you._

_Nancy_

* * *

 

**Mid-September 1946**

_Dear John,_

_I have been to see our nephew. It was very convenient of Titty to have him in the long holiday. Plenty of rooms to put up hordes of Walkers and Callums, and of course Dick has no lectures to give until the beginning of October. Titty is well but a bit weepy, although she says she’s happy really. I don’t think she can bring herself to believe Edward Richard Callum is here, and quite safely. With Susan and your mother and Dick’s mother and Dorothea all rushing about there wasn’t anything much to do to help. The university decided to wait until little Eddie was here before they moved the door to make the warden’s flat bigger (and the Hall of Residence smaller - Dick made sure he didn’t assign that room to anyone for next term.) They’ve got an extra bedroom now. The drilling and hammering didn’t bother Edward at all, but Julia howled. Here’s a photograph of Julia and Edward together. Julia looked quite astonished when she first saw her cousin – I suppose even Jane and Susie seem enormous to her and she didn’t realise she wasn’t the smallest person in the world until now!_

_Do you think our daughters will mind not having middle names when their cousins have them? Susie has Margaret too, of course. I think Jane Morrison Walker sounds OK. Julia Swallowdale Walker is a bit more unusual, of course. I think there’s up to a year after she was born add extra names for Julia. It might be more complicated for Jane. What do you think, love? It might be Beckfoot rather than Swallowdale for Julia, of course._

_Jane and Julia are very well. Jane was a bit cross with me for having left her with Mother for two whole days, although Mother said she was happy enough most of the time I was away. I really didn’t think a lively toddler was going to help in Leeds though._

_With lots of love from the girls and even more love from me, Nancy_

* * *

Nancy Walker. Beckfoot. _ABSOLUTELY NO MIDDLE NAMES FOR OUR CHILDREN LOVE JOHN_

* * *

OK, if you insist. Rather wanted Robert John for the next one, if a son. Lots of love, NW.

* * *

 

Nancy Walker. Beckfoot. WHAT NEXT ONE?! PLEASE WRITE LOVE JOHN

* * *

 

_Dear John,_

_Well considering it’s only three days since I sent you a nice long letter…._

_Maybe I did tease about the middle names, but I didn’t mean you to take my postcard the way you evidently did, so I suppose I’ve been caught by my own trick. I’m sorry if I gave you a shock. Two kids are quite enough for quite a while. I haven’t got three hands! And we_ were _very sensible!_

Gimminy - and it had been a postcard. John wouldn’t read other people’s postcards. Nancy suspected that most other people did.

_Anyway – I’m not!_

_With lots and lots of love from Nancy_

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mrs Hesketh-Jones, Kirby Green, Mary, Mrs Simpkins and Mrs Scott are all my own invention. I hope the first three people will make up for the last.  
> Bredon Wimsey has two younger brothers, Paul and Roger, mentioned in a short story by Dorothy L Sayers.

**Mid-September 1946**

_Dear Nancy,_

_When are you going to bring my nieces to see me? Julia must be old enough to be travelled with now! It took me a while to be sure, but Aunt Maggie and Uncle Fred really do mean it about treating their house as if it really was my home. (It’s just occurred to me – how do you address John’s parents? I don’t think I ever have heard you call them anything since you were married. I don’t mind saying “Uncle” and “Aunt”, but I would mind dreadfully if someone asked me to call anyone but Mother “mother”.) Jim is still talking about buying our own home somewhere closer to London – only maybe the partnership won’t carry on for much longer. The partners are all over seventy now. Jim thinks the thing to do would maybe to find another partnership to join, but he doesn’t want to hurry them into making up their minds. It looks as though we’ll be living with his uncle and aunt for another few months at least._

_Anyway, there’s loads of room and they really do want us to ask people to stay. You could manage a fortnight couldn’t you? How about coming a week on Thursday? I’ve invited Dorothea for a week starting then, so you’ll get to see her, too, for a week. She has to go and stay with her elderly friend in Horning after that – the brother has to go up to London for a week about pictures. I’ve invited Mother too – but you don’t have to come at the same time as each other – unless you want to._

_Aunt Maggie is still extremely keen on the Girl Guides and is having a “sale in aid of” combined with afternoon tea the first Monday you’ll be here. So bring one “respectable” frock, won’t you? She’s got me going to test half –a-dozen Guides for their signallers’ badge on Wednesday. I think it’s the thin end of the wedge – but I’m not sure I mind._

_See you soon, I hope,_

_Love to all,_

_Peggy_

* * *

“So very kind of you to help with testing for the badges, Mrs Brading. Maggie has been telling be what a help and support you are. And this must be your sister? You do look rather alike.”

Peggy smiled. “Yes, may I introduce my sister, Nancy Walker. Nancy, this is Mrs Hesketh-Jones, and good friend of Jim’s aunt.”

They shook hands. “How do you do, Mrs Walker. This is my friend Mrs Scott, who has come from Kirby Green to spend a few days with me.”

There was nothing for it but to smile and offer her hand. Peggy had moved on to make another introduction. Nancy doubted Mrs Scott would recognise her. It had been, after all, half a life time ago (almost exactly; she had been fifteen then.)

“You were called Blackett, weren’t you? From somewhere in the North? Now are you the older or the younger girl? I can’t remember.”

No, she hadn’t forgotten. _Well, neither have I,_ thought Nancy.

“How kind of you to suggest we could be muddled. I’m the older sister - _much_ less pretty than Peggy still, of course.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean, how unkind of you to imply, I only meant……”

Dorothea arrived at Nancy’s elbow with a plate of very small scones.

“Oh, Dot – shall I trot those about for a bit? And may I introduce Mrs Hesketh-Jones, who’s a friend of Jim’s aunt, and her friend, Mrs Scott, to you?”

_She’s puffing herself up with self-important indignation, because she thinks I introduced them the wrong way round._

“I hope you won’t mind a little advice from someone who knew you as a child, Mrs Walker, dear, you should introduce the younger lady to…”Mrs Scott began, oblivious of Mrs Hesketh-Jones’s attempt to nudge her discretely.

Whoever would have thought all that boring etiquette stuff the GA had insisted they learn could be fun. Nancy ploughed on with her sweetest smile. “Mrs Hesketh-Jones, Mrs Scott, this the Viscountess St George – a very old childhood friend of ours.”

* * *

 

Dorothea Wimsey to Titty Callum:

_I’ve no idea what it was about really. I did try to pin down Nancy on the subject after everyone was gone, but she was maddeningly vague. The only definite thing I got from her was that Mrs Scott had been rude about Polly, but I’m sure that isn’t the whole story. Mrs Hesketh- Jones was nice. Anyway, the way Nancy introduced me was a hint enough. I tried to be as like Gerry’s grandmother being gracious to someone she disapproves of as I possibly could. Mrs Scott did her best to interrogate me about Gerry’s family. I countered with the Broads and enthused about bird protection until she must have thought I was obsessed._

* * *

Nancy to John

_I really could see how Dorothea would have made a wonderful Duchess. She did it all superbly on only the slightest of hints. I was great fun at the time, but I rather wish I hadn’t done it now – scoring points and being beastly about social stuff like that is far too much like the GA. Is this what not having a proper job going to do to me? Yes, I know that the girls really are my proper job – and they are a full-time one – but there isn’t much challenge in changing a nappy anymore – I got the hang of it ages ago. That’s no excuse, of course. Your mother, or mine, would never have tried that sort of one-upmanship however vile the Scott woman was. (and she was \- then and now.) _

* * *

Titty Callum to Dorothea Wimsey

_Mrs Scott used to turn up to tea and be nosy. She used to go on about how sensitive she was and come out with the most tactless comments. She said something about no-one knowing what it was like to worry about their husband in front of Mother and Mrs Blackett. I suppose Nancy must have been in the room at the time. We weren’t allowed to escape from Mrs Scott! Mother would have let us escape, of course, but Mrs Scott wasn’t having it. She used to turn to each of us one by one, as if she thought she was visiting royalty and grill us about things that were really none of her business and then disapprove – and sort of imply that mother did. I don’t suppose she mentioned anything about Sinbad, did she? Or a Mrs Simkins? When we moved to Portmouth, Sinbad stayed in Kirby Green with her. He had already half moved in with her. She was devastated at the idea of him going, and Daddy and Susan were pretty sure he would just try to run off if we tried to take him to Portsmouth with us. We lost her address when Mother’s flat in Plymouth was bombed. I suppose Mrs Simkins is quite old by now. I hope she is still alive. I’m afraid Sinbad probably won’t be._

* * *

John to Nancy

_As to that, both our mothers had a nurse to help. At least we did after Titty was born. I can’t remember before that. You wouldn’t be Nancy if you didn’t like to win and if you weren’t Nancy you’d just be someone I liked, not the person I love. I’m putting it badly but I hope you understand. (Suppose our daughters have both inherited the competitive streak from both of us? Things will be lively!) And Mrs Scott was beastly insensitive to your mother and mine. I don’t imagine Mother would be in the least bit sorry to know that you and Dot scored points off the Scott Woman, although I doubt she’d admit it!_

* * *

Dorothea Wimsey to Titty Walker

_Your letter caught up with me in Horning. Mrs Barrable was expecting me, but I think that’s because Susan has been coming round and reminding her of it every day for a week. It’s marked on the calendar in Susan’s hand-writing, too. Mrs Scott didn’t mention anything about Sinbad. I suppose he would be a pretty old cat by now._

_I hope you and Edward are both well – and Dick of course. And yes, I would love to spend Christmas with you. Thank you very much indeed._

_With much love,_

_Dorothea_

_PS I’m glad I didn’t seal the envelope!  Joe’s friend Mary, who works at the Swan says that a Mr and Mrs Scott have arrived, claiming that I said they must see the Broads. Mary didn’t make the connection at first, because of course Joe never refers to me by title. (This woman does nothing but …..) But then she started talking to Mary, describing me and fishing for information about me and how often I came here and whether it was possible for a visitor to join “this bird protection society” she had heard so much about. Mary says she made it sound like some sort of golf club! Mary kept a straight face and told her it was very exclusive and members only met at each other’s houses or on their own boats – never hired ones!_

_Pete told me Joe has no sense of humour whatsoever about any Mary and Joseph jokes. I don’t know what Mary thinks about it – except that it’s plain she thinks well of Joe, but I don’t know if that’s just as a friend. Anyway, I was going to avoid her like the plague (Mrs Scott I mean not Mary) but I might go round and call on her tomorrow morning and see what I can find out about Sinbad and Mrs Simpkins._

_Much love to all, again_

_Dorothea._

* * *

“Oh how kind of you, Lady St George. And I was just coming to call on you.”

“How err..What a coincidence.” Dorothea said, rather weakly.

“My husband is quite obsessed with fishing and it’s so good for him to have a little treat. What funny hobbies men have, I always say.”

“I believe the Queen is very fond of salmon fishing.” Dorothea reminded herself that she had a duty towards the (probably) late Sinbad and the (possibly) late Mrs Simpkins to perform. She really shouldn’t give in to her sudden inclination to contradict everything Mrs Scott said.

“I suppose you meet her all the time. I would so much like to hear about the dear Princesses, Lady St. George.”

“I’ve never met the princesses I’m afraid.” Dorothea said. “I live rather quietly you know.”

“Well you do seem to know some very interesting people. I heard that girl at the inn mention you were staying with an admiral.”

Despite her annoyance, Dorothea could not help smiling. “Mrs Barrable is an old friend of my mother’s. She was very kind to us when we were children. It’s an affectionate nickname.”

“Ah, old friends are the best, of course. I was very sorry to lose touch with the Walkers. Such a nice family. A little eccentric of course – but then we all have our little faults don’t we?”

“If you consider them eccentric, I shudder to think what you would think of my family.” Dorothea said evenly.

“Ah, well, the parrot. Such an unusual pet. And the middle girl had a funny name of course. Funny skinny little thing.”

“Titty is my sister-in-law now.”

“Oh really? She has done well for herself, I must say.”

“You could equally well say my brother has been very lucky. I’m very fond of them both.” Dorothea said quite firmly, hoping it would warn Mrs Scott away from any more unfortunate comments, and hurried on. “They used to have a cat too, Sinbad. Titty said that he stayed with a Mrs Simpkins when they moved to Portsmouth.”

“I remember. A little common stripy thing. They had rescued it from somewhere.  My sister keeps pedigree Persians. So much nicer don’t you think, Lady St George?”

Dorothea thought of Peter and Harriet’s placid tabby who had made the move from Audley Square to Hertfordshire and back without inflicting so much as a scratch on anyone and Nebuchadnezer, the fluffy latest Dowager Duchess’s cats, all of whom Bredon assured her had been equally vicious. “ _And the more Grandmother likes a person, the worse Nebuchadnezer goes for them. We could find you a pair of greaves from the Hall and see if that helps. Aunt Helen’s still away in Scotland.”_ And somehow that had ended up with Bredon, Roger and Paul playing in various pieces of armour, with the Duke playing the part of a dragon and Dorothea allowing herself to tied up to one of the pillars at the end of the long gallery as a damsel in distress to be rescued, until all five were shrieking with laughter and Lord and Lady Grummidge were announced and they all had to get out of the armour rather quickly.

“Still, quite an appropriate pet for Mrs Simpkins. She’s renting that little cottage that the Smith woman stole the furniture from. Quite exciting some people thought it, with a police car turning up. Of course _I_ find that sort of vulgarity upsetting, but then I have such a sensitive nature. She’s still got the cat I believe. Doesn’t get out much now of course.”

They were nearly back at Mrs Barrable’s bungalow.

“I really should be going back to the friend I’m staying with. I’ve already promised to go out for the afternoon, with Joe and Pete on their boat.”

Dorothea had felt guilty about leaving the admiral even for the afternoon, but Pete had privately pointed out to her that it was easier for Joe to ask Mary along too if Dorothea was there too. “ _It don’t set tongues wagging in Horning – leastways not more than they wags already.”_

“Oh – was that the young man who was left for dead twice. Miss Evans told me about him. Ooh, it’s a dreadful thing to think of. Such an awful thing to happen. I don’t know how anyone could cope.”

Dorothea began to wonder if she had misjudged Mrs Scott. Was there a sympathetic human being under the snobbish exterior veneer?

“He came in with his friend to speak to the chambermaid this morning.” Mrs Scott continued.

 (Joe had asked Mary to come with them. Good. Dorothea would have to remember to forget to take any milk with them. Joe would be sure to want to offer Mary a cup of tea and show off the _Death and Glory’s_ stove. Pete had suggested that they would have to get milk from a nearby farm. Dot would go, of course, and Pete would have to show her the way. “ _We can walk slow. If Joe don’t have the gumption to say summat while we’re gone – well, he don’t deserve her_.”)

“It made me feel quite funny, seeing him standing there just like anybody. Still, there must have been something a bit odd about him don’t you think? To have survived that? He probably doesn’t realise how much seeing him upsets people with finer feelings. Of course, I am very sensitive but I’m sure you are, too my dear Lady St George. Why don’t you come and take tea with me instead?” She patted Dorothea’s arm.

“That, Mrs Scott, is probably the most insensitive, cruellest thing I have ever heard anyone say. However limited your ability to feel sympathy may be, I hope you will refrain from ever making such a callous and self-centred remark again. Goodbye.”

“But I am renowned for my sympathy, all my friends tell me…”

Dorothea didn’t stay to hear the rest. She couldn’t bear to go into the bungalow. She was too furious to stand still. She swept past Susan, whom she had not even noticed approaching until then. She continued past the Dudgeons’, past the Farlands’ and climbed the gate into the Wilderness. _Death and Glory_ was moored there, but it was Saturday. Pete and Joe would be working at Jonnatt’s until noon.

So that was what shaking with fury felt like.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

** About fifteen minutes later **

Tom wasn’t surprised to find his wife in their bedroom. Her face was pale and her eyes dry. The fact that she had not been weeping was not necessarily a good sign. He sat down next to her on the bed.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Susan shook her head vigorously. “No. No thank you. You couldn’t do anything about it. What would be the point?”

“Because I’m your husband and we share things?”

She sighed. “Must you really know? You can’t change how people think. It’ll only make you feel angry too. Worse probably than I feel.”

He answered her tone of voice as much as her words. “I don’t want you to tell me if you really don’t want to. It’s just that..”

“You want me to want to tell you.” She finished for him. She glanced up, but the eye contact was fleeting, and her gaze was once more fixed on her own hands, clenched together in her lap.

Tom nodded. “If suppose it’s rather unfair of me. Is this the same thing that I found Dot crying over in the Wilderness? She wouldn’t tell me what it was about either.”

“It probably is. She must have had a whole conversation with the wretched woman. I haven’t rowed with Dot, if that’s what you’re thinking. Tom, don’t you understand that I don’t want to make you unhappy? If it was something we could do anything about, it would be different.”

“And you wouldn’t be Susan if you didn’t have someone to look after? The thing is – I want protect you too. Or at least say something to help.”

She looked up, nodded, allowed herself to be hugged.

“About having somewhere to live…” Tom began tentatively.

“I wasn’t upset about that. Your parents have been very kind.” Susan said quickly.

“I know it isn’t that. But it is something I can do something about. Uncle Frank said he wanted to talk to me about it this morning. I think he has accepted that Starboard – I mean Bess – won’t come back to Horning to live – at least in the foreseeable future. I don’t think he has given up hope all together. He doesn’t want to sell the house at the moment – but he doesn’t want to stay there by himself either. He offered to rent it to us.”

“That would be perfect of course, but should we really be paying out that much in rent? We’ll still need to buy somewhere eventually.”

“He’s not asking us to pay anything like the proper rent for the size of house. In fact, we’d be lucky if the rent he’s asking got us any more than a two bedroomed flat or cottage – which is what we would be looking for anyway. It makes it a bit less of a wrench for him this way. He’s found a flat within walking distance of the office. He’ll take the furniture from his bedroom and study, and a few favourite pictures and so on. He plans to leave the rest and come back for anything he finds he needs.”

“What is Mrs McGinty going to do?”

“She’s old enough for her Old Age Pension now. She’s going to live with her older sister in Dundee. At least it isn’t Dundee, but somewhere near there. She wanted to go last year, but held on in case…well, just in case it made a difference really.”

“Broughty Ferry, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, of course. And Starb, I mean Bess, is going to stay in London.”

Susan nodded. She had her own ideas about why Bess Farland was so determined not to return to the Broads, and to live by herself. Perhaps it was not such a bad thing for Bess – although many people would see it that way, of course. Perhaps most people would. Or perhaps Susan herself had entirely misinterpreted a few comments and a few looks when she had met Bess last Christmas. Still, she wasn’t Titty, given to wild flights of fantasy.

“That’s ideal.” she said. “You said yes, of course?”

“I said I’d ask you, but that I thought the answer was most probably yes.” Tom said.

“Well, of course it is. It is very kind indeed of him. Hadn’t we better go and thank him now, and give him a definite reply?”

* * *

 

**That afternoon – aboard the Death and Glory**

“That chap don’t know much about fishing.” Pete remarked critically as they sailed slowly past. “Look at his float. Foot above his hook if that. His line don’t look to be weighted neither.

“According to his wife he’s obsessed with it. That’s why they’re here. Mr and Mrs Scott, they’re called.” Mary said.

“The ones that were asking after Dot?” Joe asked.

“Yes, dear Lady St. George this and dear Lady St George that. Did she find you?”

“Yes. So much the worse for me.”

“She’ll be pestering you the whole time you’re here. Some folks are like that with titles.”

 “I think she’ll be only too glad to avoid me.” Dot said. Pete was startled by the savagery in Dot’s expression.  You might almost think she had been taking lessons from that Captain Nancy.

“Is it time to stop and have a brew of tea, yet?” Pete asked hopefully. There was no point stopping somewhere too near (or too far from) the farm.

**That evening – at the Swan**

“Of course, sometimes those that have married above themselves are the worst snobs. I expect she’s used to everyone agreeing with her all the time. I happened to speak to the doctor’s wife. It was quite plain that they’re all so anxious to stand in her good books that they won’t hear a word against her. We may as well go tomorrow. I find the place very unfriendly.”

“But we’ve booked until Monday morning, my dear. And you were quite right, I am enjoying fishing. I had no idea how to go on, but a very pleasant young chap showed me how to cast and what to do with the float and so on. Didn’t say overmuch, and the girl with the milk can said less. But they were both very kind and quite encouraging. I think my dear, we should definitely stay until Monday as planned. I wouldn’t mind staying a few extra days if the weather holds.”

“Monday.” And it seemed strangely as if she was speaking from between gritted teeth.

**A few days later**

_Dear Mrs Brading,_

_Mother was delighted to receive your letter, and the letter from your sister, Mrs Callum. She had very much feared, when we heard how bad the bombing had been at Plymouth, that perhaps some of the Walker family had passed on, and of course Mother says she totally understands a lost address under the circumstances._

_I am sorry to say that Mother’s health is not what it was – in particular she has macular degeneration and has only very limited sight left. She remains her usual cheerful self despite this and very much enjoyed hearing about your marriage and your nephew and nieces. Mother does love to share good news and “rejoice with those that rejoice.”_

_Sinbad is a great deal slower that he was, and his hearing is not so good – still as Mother says, she isn’t so quick either, and they have been good company for each other ever since Father died. My children loved him so much that they persuaded us into getting a cat of our own and then a second cat. Sadly, this is causing us some problems now, and I wonder if you can help? I don’t know exactly how you are placed. I’d like Mother to come and live with us. We’ve got the room now our eldest is off to get a job in London and Mother has found it increasingly difficult to cope on her own. She did come and live with us for a few weeks, but Jet and Nev didn’t take kindly to having another cat about the place, and after a week Mother said it wasn’t fair on Sinbad and she’d move back to Kirby Green. She says she’ll come back to us in a flash if Sinbad found another home where he’d be happy. So I was wondering, if you or Mrs Callum were settled in a home of your own, could Sinbad come back to you?_

_I’ve not put this idea to Mother yet, for fear of getting her hopes up. She’d not give him up to just anyone, but she’d be happy to see him go back to his first family, I’m sure._

_With very best wishes to the whole family,_

_Yours sincerely,_

_Ena Harrison_

* * *

 

_Susan to Titty_

Yes, I know you would love to have Sinbad – but really, besides the difficulty of getting him to Leeds, the Hall of Residence is quite close a main road and he’s not used to much traffic. Besides, what he would make of having 89 young men thundering up and downstairs all the time?  And what would Edward make of him? Sinbad would only have the two of us here, for the foreseeable future anyway, and there’s plenty of garden for him to stalk around in ……….

* * *

 

_Dick to Tom_

 ..really am very grateful. One of the girls a year below Dot tried keeping a cat in college and it didn’t work at all. Allegedly, at least, it was house trained, and at least Shrewsbury had bits of garden and soil and so forth…but it never really got the idea of other people’s rooms as not being the same as outside. Eventually she left a revolting mess on the history lecturer’s bed and got the sack. I mean the cat got the sack, not the student. I’m sure Sinbad will be happier with you. I’ll have to finish this to go and hear both sides of a “playing a saxophone at unreasonable hours” complaint……

* * *

 

** Late March 1947. Helen Blackett’s house. **

“Harriet was always afraid every single one would be a flop – and none of them ever were.” Eiluned Price. “And everyone has done it at some time. Rushed round and got friends to turn up when the wretched thing is performed or shown or read for fear no-one will ever turn up at all. You were a bit of a stalwart turner-up for Lillian’s sets and costumes before the war I remember.”

Nancy moved her foot very slightly, until it touched Eiluned’s, and flicked her eyes over to where Aunt Helen was chatting to Sylvia and Marjorie. “It’s like hearing your own name across a room.”

Eiluned nodded. “I’m pretty sure Lady Winifred is only too glad to get away from her mother. She’s been putrid to Harriet all along. Lowered herself to call round and harangue Syvlia and me on having an unhealthy influence on her daughter. Only met the girl twice. Surprised the old misery knew where we lived. Probably doesn’t know what to do with herself now she can’t order posters telling the poor to knit their own coal and be grateful. Anyway, is that sister of yours not coming to join in?”

“Busy teaching Girl Guides to tie knots and being happily sick.”

“Happily sick? What for? A cheerful patient’s badge? Sounds just the thing for some people.”

Nancy laughed so loudly that Julia looked up from trying to stuff both feet in her own mouth at once. “Peggy’s the one who’s quite happy to be being sick. At least, she’d rather be pregnant and not sick. Are you coming to any of these new author book things? Not that Dot’s exactly new, but books and magazines aren’t the same thing really”

“The lunchtime thing for rising authors. Not the evening one. Can’t stand cocktails. Haven’t they got something in the afternoon too?”

“Something for book-sellers’ buyers, or whatever they’re called. We don’t have to turn up for that. My father-in-law suggested trotting the kids round Trafalger Square instead. Just as well. Far too much being good for one day.”

“Your other kid’s had enough being good too. Is that an oil pastel she’s got hold of?”

“Barbequed billygoats – it is!”

* * *

 

The wind was brisk. Lady Winifred suggested the National Gallery. Bess Farland had agreed. There was nothing for Nancy to do but fall in with the suggestion. Perhaps they feared it would be awkward to find something to talk about all afternoon.  Support for Dorothea was, after all, the only thing the three of them had in common. If Lady Winifred had not been there, Nancy and Bess could have cheerfully spent an afternoon talking about sailing. Bess was chatting to Lady Winifred.

“Let’s look at the visiting exhibition first.” Lady Winifred suggested.

They seemed to have to pass an interminable procession of Dutch Interiors first. Nancy would have swept past them without a second glance, but the Lady Winifred and Bess stopped a couple of times to discuss a few of the pictures briefly. Nancy could not tell if it was genuine interest or they were just politely waiting for Jane’s short legs to catch up. The latter, probably. How much could you say about another painting of another black and white tiled floor? Trailing behind them, she caught an expression on Lady Winifred face when she spoke to Bess that seemed oddly familiar. It was a long ago memory, not a recent one. Why should she associate Lady Winifred with her brother-in-law? Then she remembered. That trip to the Baltic on _Goblin_  - Jim had looked at Susan with a very similar expression. Admiration? Longing? Hope? Anxiety? Something of all those. Well, good luck to her. Jim had been unlucky and - then in Nancy’s most private opinion, which she would not share even with John – considerably more lucky.

“Mummy, what’s that?” They had arrived at the visiting exhibition while Nancy had been wondering about Lady Winifred.

“It’s a statue of man, love.”

“What’s _that_?” Jane insisted. Once she had set her mind on finding something out, Jane wouldn’t give up. Shifting Julia rather awkwardly on her hip, Nancy bent her head down to the level of Jane’s head. She was fairly sure what Jane would be pointing at and she was right. If Jane reacted as Nancy thought she would, she would be able to make her escape soon without it looking in the least bit odd. Awkward, perhaps, but not odd.

Nancy told Jane.

“That man got one too.”

“Yes, Jane, well observed.”

“He hasn’t got any clotheses on too.”

“That’s right.”

Jane trotted ahead to catch up with Bess and Lady Winifred. She did like to pass on her new knowledge, and there were plenty of statutes of both sexes. Jane spoke much more clearly these days and her voice was seldom quiet. Nancy shifted Julia back to the other hip and gave it a minute before she caught up.

“…. And that man got one too.” Jane was pointing out triumphantly.

“They all do – so I’ve heard.” Bess Farland murmured in reply, the corners of her mouth twitching. She didn’t sound especially embarrassed, despite the fact that they were being discretely watched by two women in fur coats, concealing their amusement behind some sort of guide book.

“What it for?” Jane pursued her enquiries.

Lady Winifred looked at Nancy with an expression very like desperation. The women in fur coats hurried away. Had Nancy really heard Bess mutter “ _You may well ask?”_ Nancy smiled her best officers’-wives’-tea-party smile.

“Shall we three go and play outside and look at the pigeons for a bit and let Miss Farland and Lady Winifred look round quietly?” Nancy suggested brightly. Lady Winifred looked relieved. Bess looked pleased. Jane jumped up and down.

“Sensibly.” Nancy added, taking Jane’s hand.

* * *

 

They had been in the National Gallery for less than fifteen minutes. The wind was still brisk, but the sunlight filtered fitfully though thin patches in the clouds. Grey stone, grey weather, grey pigeons. Jane’s red woolly hat made a bright splash of colour. She had reached some kind of stand-off with the pigeons. Neither side was quite willing to let the other get within grabbing or pecking distance. The pigeons were not willing to give up the hope of food altogether, and Jane had already expressed her sadness at the lack of “nanimuls” in London. Nancy had cautiously promised that there would be animals in Malta. “ _Not quite so many as by the Lake, probably.”_

“I do hope your daughter just tried to call that pigeon a duck.” said a quiet voice to Nancy’s right.

The Very Senior Officer hadn’t changed much. He was a little greyer perhaps.

“So do I.” Nancy admitted. “Jane does tend to repeat everything, so I do try to be careful. If she does repeat her latest new word, I’d be rather obliged if you didn’t mention it to my father-in-law.”

The Very Senior Officer nodded. Nancy thought it was as much an acknowledgement that her guess had been correct as agreement.

“He mentioned that you were off to Malta in a few weeks’ time.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Nancy grinned, but did not take her eyes off Jane.

“Does this seem very dull after everything you used to do?”

“I love my daughters.” said Nancy fiercely, before adding more quietly, “Yes, sometimes it does.”

“My sister helps run a company of Girl Guides.” she added.

The Very Senior Officer did not mistake this for an irrelevance.

“Do you think you could fit in the odd spot of extra work besides looking after these two? Nothing regular. It probably wouldn’t take much of your time at all.”

The sudden grin and sparkle in the hazel eyes made Nancy’s answer almost superfluous.

“Good. Now there will be a few things you need to learn and details to sort out. Does this little one speak yet?” he enquired. Julia stared solemnly back at him from her pram.

“No, Julia is only nine months old. She won’t be repeating anything for a while yet.”

“Ted Walker said you were staying with your aunt. Can you leave Jane with her for a little while?”

“I think so.”

“Good. My secretary remembers you and some of the other ladies in the clerical staff do too. I’m sure they’d like it if you brought little Julia in for them to see.”

“What time?”

“How about ten o’clock tomorrow?” he suggested

“That should be fine.”

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

**June 1947 – Horning.**

Dorothea shook her head. “No. Really. I’m very lucky. If a home is somewhere you can go when you need to go somewhere, I do have a home. Several in fact.”

 “Titty’s definition.” Susan said. “You know this is one of them? You’re welcome here as often as you like.”

“Thank you.” Dorothea smiled at Susan’s reflection in the mirror. Susan smiled back as well as she could for the hairpins held in her mouth. “Mother and Father would be quite happy for me to live with them all the time.”

“Are two books being written in one house one too many?” Susan asked.

“I think Mother thinks it’s two to many, sometimes. But that isn’t the reason. It’s…I don’t know how to explain…I would feel like a failure.”

“You’re a successful author. That isn’t being a failure.”

“It isn’t that. If I couldn’t write, I suppose I could get some other job. It would be like saying I couldn’t cope.”

“But of course you can.”

“That’s the point really. And I do write better for a change of scene every so often.”

“There, that’s done.” Susan secured Dorothea’s hat with a hat pin and settle herself at the mirror, while Dorothea sat on the bed next to Sinbad and tickled him under the chin in the manner he particularly approved.

“Do you mind if I try the reading one last time?” Dorothea asked Susan.

“Of course not.” It sounded a little strange because Susan was applying her face powder at the same time.

Sinbad listened intently to the first few verses, then began to wash himself. Susan was putting on her lipstick as Dorothea finished speaking, so there was a pause.

“The same reading as John and Nancy’s wedding. You read it beautifully then, too.” Susan said, getting up from the dressing table stool.

“I liked it. Titty read it at our wedding. Gerry left the choice of reading to me. Titty,” suddenly there was a lump in Dorothea’s throat. “did it very well, especially considering she only had time to read it through to herself once.”

As she accepted Susan’s wordlessly offered hug, Dorothea felt surprised, again, that she was a good few inches taller than Susan.

“At least crying at weddings is OK if you have to.” Susan said in her “practical” voice.

“I think it’s usual to wait for the service to start.” Dorothea said, pleased she had managed a smile, however weak.

* * *

 

Perhaps Dorothea saw more because she was so determined to focus on the present.

 _I wonder,_ Dorothea thought, _if Pete has noticed at all how Violet is looking at him. Well, she is the only bridesmaid, so she gets at least one dance with the best man._

She was so busy wondering about this that Susan had to give her a prod, after all, when it was time for the reading.

* * *

 

“It’s a lovely wedding.” Mrs Barrable said as she sat next to Dorothea, watching her brother dancing with Bess Farland in the village hall.  “And didn’t Pete do his speech well? And your reading was beautiful. It’s so nice to see everyone together.  I wonder where Bill and Port are? I can’t remember seeing them today, but my memory is getting rather bad. And really, in best frocks and hats, I might have seen Port and thought it was Starboard.”

Dorothea hesitated. Mrs Barrable had forgotten the deaths or Port and Bill so completely that that the news came as a fresh tragedy each time. “ _I don’t always tell her, when she asks. Just say I haven’t seen them recently and then say something about having seen Tom or Joe just the other day.”_ Her brother had admitted Dorothea. She glanced around. Bill’s mother was safely on the other side of the hall, talking to Miss Evans. Mr Farland had slipped away quietly sometime earlier.

 _Let her enjoy herself._ Dorothea thought. _She’s unlike to say the wrong thing to the wrong person – and everyone here would understand._

“People look different in their best clothes.” Dorothea agreed and started telling Mrs Barrable again about Edward starting to crawl and making sounds that nearly sounded like words.

* * *

 

Pete arrived suddenly at the kitchen door the next morning. Dorothea was stirring the porridge.  Susan had not yet come downstairs.

“Where’s Tom? Mrs Barrable’s dead.”

Dorothea dropped the spoon in the porridge.

“He’s taken a cup of tea up to Susan.”

“Tom. TOM!” They both shouted, through the open door from the kitchen to the hall.

“Are you sure?” Dorothea asked.

“’Course, I am. Hours, most like. Her brother found her just now in her bed. He’s in a fair taking. Standing at the door – wanting to go for a doctor, not wanting to leave her. You go along to him, Dot. I’ll tell Tom.”

Dorothea shot out of the door, still in her slippers with her hair down her back. Pete moved the porridge to the side of the Aga.

* * *

 

**The Duchess of Denver to Lady Grummidge**

_She was to stay at Audley Square of course, so I had to invite her too. Now she says she’s got to stay and help with the funeral arrangement for her mother’s old governess. It seems quite unnecessary to me._   _However, I don’t have to invite anyone extra so that she has someone to take her into dinner, so that’s one blessing. I’ve invited her and she can’t come, so that’s over with for another year._


End file.
